secj^^o ooPY, 

I8Q9. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.. Copyright M, : 

Shelf_._?l^'| 



UNITED STATES OF AMER 

i 



a? 

VIERICA. 



AMERICA IN THE EAST 



WORKS OF 



The Mikado's Empire, 

CoREA THE Hermit Nation. 

Japanese Fairy World. 

Japan : in History, Folk-Lore, and Art. 

The Religions of Japan. 

Matthew Calbraith Perry. 

TowNSEND Harris. 

The Romance of Discovery. 

The Romance of American Colonization. 

The Romance of Conquest. 

America in the East. 



America in the East 



A GLANCE AT 



Our History, Prospects, Problems, and 
Duties in the Pacific Ocean 



BY 



WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 

u 

FORMERLY OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN, AUTHOR OF ** THE 
mikado's EMPIRE," " COREA THE HERMIT NATION," ETC. 



\ 



NEW YORK 
A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY 

1899 



^K t'1 



M ^^^ 



(rl 






Copyright J iSgg 
By a. S. Barnes and Co. 



*«j?t*-.. !■., rS'Bri^f:: 



a •^EGSiveo. 




mntberstts'^rcss 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 







? 



V* 



I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK 
TO THE 

Memory of my Honored Friend 
JOHN LEAVITT STEVENS 

MINISTER OF THE UNITED STATES TO HAWAII, WHO, BELIEVING 
THAT THE LIVES AND PROPERTY OF AMERICAN CITI- 
ZENS ABROAD OUGHT TO BE AS WELL 
PROTECTED AS IF THEY WERE AT 
HOME, ACTED ACCORDING 
TO HIS FAITH 



PREFACE 



Called to face new duties, from which 
they do not propose to flinch, the American 
people want facts for guidance. History gives 
the surest ground for prophecy. I have tried 
to look our problems in the face, and to show 
our past in the Pacific. 

Four years' residence in the Far East, from 
1870 to 1874, nourished and increased an 
interest in the Asian peoples, which I may 
call hereditary, because it sprang from a Hne 
of seafaring ancestors, English and American. 

When the events of the wonderful and the 
pivotal year of 1898 had altered the trend of 
our national history. The Outlook Company 
wished me to represent their enterprising 
journal in the Philippines. Fascinating as was 
the call, my home duties would not allow me 
to accept, but to the next request for service, I 
was glad to be able to say " I can and I will." 
So I wrote seven papers for " The Outlook ** 



Vlll 



Preface 



showing what Americans, under God, have 
done and can do in lands in or bordering on 
the Pacific. If, then, this record of the enter- 
prise of our fellow-countrymen before Dewey 
should stimulate patriotism, arouse honest 
pride in the continuousness of American work 
and service in Asia, or point the way to pres- 
ent and future duty, the credit is due to the 
editors and publishers of "The Outlook." 
On his own part the author returns thanks 
both for the suggestion and the permission 
to reprint the papers in a little book. To 
Messrs. Harper and Brothers, whose honors 
and confidence I have enjoyed since my 
return from Japan in 1874, I return hearty 
thanks for their permission to reprint from 
" Harper's Monthly Magazine *' the article 
on " Our Navy in Asiatic Waters." With 
fresh matter incorporated, these studies, obser- 
vations, and forecasts are herewith sent forth 
in a revised and more attractive form. 

W. E. G. 

Ithaca, April az, 1899. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. The Signal Gun at Manila .... i 

II. What is our Problem ? 8 

III. The War a Revelation 15 

IV. Can we govern the Philippines? ... 25 
V. The Ancient Tropic World .... 30 

VI. The Tropics in Modern Days ... 37 

VII. Can the White Man live in the Tropics ? 45 

VIII. The Anglo-Saxons join Hands ... 53 

IX. The Chinese Empire 58 

X. Causes of Chinese Decay 65 

^ XL Our Pioneer Countrymen in China . . 71 

XII. American Leaven in the Chinese Mass 8z 

XIII. The Old Japan of Hermit Days ... 92 

XIV. The Coming of the Americans . . . 101 
XV. The Missionary Story 109 

XVI. Literature, Science, and Diplomacy . 114 

XVII. The Americans in Korea 122 

XVIII. Hawaii our New Possession 125 

XIX. Our New Fellow-citizens 133 

XX. Orientals and Occidentals in Hawaii . 143 

XXI. Our Flag in the Waters of China and 

Japan 153 

XXII. The Advent of American Power in the 

Pacific 160 



X Contents 

Chapter Page 

XXIII. Glynn, Perry, and Harris .... 164 

XXIV. Gallant Actions of Foote and Tatt- 

nall in China 171 

XXV. McDouGAL in the "Wyoming" at 

Shimonoseki 178 

XXVI. Our Little War with one Gun . . 188 

XXVII. A Brush with Formosa Savages . . 192 

XXVIII. The Korean Expedition 195 

XXIX. The Historic Movement towards the 

Pacific 203 

XXX. Trade and Markets in Asia . . . 211 

XXXI. Our Friendship with Russia . . . 216 

XXXII. American Enterprise in the Pacific . 219 

XXXIII. Precedents and Resources .... 226 

XXXIV. Our Imperative Need 231 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



First Engine on the Seoul-Chemulpo Railway Frontispiece 
Townsend Harris, First Minister to Japan To face page 14 

The Crown Prince of Korea, 1899 . . ,, >j28 

Three Korean Boys ,, >» 38 

Union Church, Yokohama ,, >> 50 

Japanese Legation in Seoul ,, >> 60 

High School and Students, Fukui, Japan ,, „ 76 
Native Congregational Church, Tokio, 

Japan ,, >> 9^^ 

The Japanese Railway Engineer, Ishikawa ,, ,> 104 
Dr. Whitney, Hospital Staff, and Nurses, 

Tokio ,, >> 116 

Metropolitan Police, Korea .... ,, >» 124 
John L. Stevens, U. S. Minister to Hawaii, 

1893 ,, ,, 14a 

Consulate of Japan in Seoul . . . . ,, >> 158 

McDougal's Ship, the "Wyoming" . . ,, ,, 182 

The Double-ender Monocacy .... ,, >> i8a 

Captain Homer Blake . . . . . . „ >» 196 

North Gate, Capital of Korea .... ,, ,,208 

Russian Legation in Seoul ,, >> 218 

Independence Arch in Seoul . . . . ,, ,,226 



America in the East 

CHAPTER I 

THE SIGNAL GUN AT MANILA 

FOR the people of the United States, the 
oceanic event of May i, 1898, changed 
their view of the world. It made the Far 
East a Near West. Heretofore they had 
looked at the Chinas, the Indies, and the 
Pacific spice-world, eastward, as if through and 
beyond Europe. On that day perspective 
became prospect. Now they turn to see the 
whole Pacific through their western windows 
and at their own doors. Hereafter we study 
for ourselves the Asiatic lands and waters, 
glad, however, to profit by that older ex- 
perience of Europe which for us may have in 
it " prophetic strain." 

What to the world at large is the meaning 
of that sound heard at Cavite, May 1, 1898 ? 
Boom of bell or ring of rifled cannon may 
mean nothing of itself, but some shots have 



America in the East 

been "heard round the world." Lexington 
and Manila have a concord of significance 
that foreshadows change. What, to us Amer- 
icans, is the sequel of the opening of Gridley's 
guns on the " Olympia" ? In what state of 
mind do they find us ? What is the prophecy 
of our action ? 

The Japanese of Tokio tell us that during 
the lapsing centuries the great bell at Shiba 
has been to the people timepiece, barometer, 
and guide. Its note, muffled or clear, an- 
nounced the hours, but changed to the ear 
according to conditions of weather. The 
interpretation varied also to the soul. In 
youth it inspired hope, at man's estate cheer, 
in old age warning. 

Are we, as a nation, in childhood, at man^s 
estate, or in old age ? Do we listen to cheer 
or discouragement? Shall we see in the 
course of events, as compelled by the firing 
of that shot, the hand of man, or of God ? 
Are we to go forward or backward ? Shall 
we hold the Philippine archipelago, give it 
back to the Spaniards, or, refusing responsi- 
bilities, trade it oflF to some other Power ? 
Are we to cling to the Utopia of isolation, or 



The Signal Gun at Manila 

yield to the necessity of national expansion ? 
Does possession of distant islands mean fare- 
well to the alleged traditions of the fathers ? 
Does girding to new duties, facing of vexing 
problems, and prolonged hard work in the 
distant Pacific mean " imperialism " ? Or 
does it show faith in God and in democratic 
institutions ? 

These are questions which confront us, 
whether we like to face them or not. That 
we are not fully prepared to give answer 
makes no difference. Neither time, nor tide, 
nor God Almighty waits for man. Provi- 
dence got ahead of us, and gave the signal 
before we were ready. Nevertheless, we 
pray, as of old, " Lead us not into temptation." 
That is, do not bring us into difficulty, or 
where we may do wrong, fail, or leave un- 
done, "But deliver us from evil." That is, 
having got into the difficulty, or even, if so 
be, the wrong, lead us out, set us free, make 
us victor, or help us to bear by giving grace 
sufficient. But, in any event, show us what 
we ought to do and give us courage to do it. 

Yet Dewey's was not the first American 
signal gun in the Far East. On the yth of 

3 



America in the East 

July, 1853, Perry's flagship "Susquehanna/' 
the foremost of a peaceful armada, dropped 
anchor off the Yokohama bluffs in Yedo Bay. 
His sunset gun tolled the knell of old Japan, 
and began the raising of the curtain on a new 
panorama of history. Though the Commo- 
dore did not know it, there was already within 
the country a political earthquake just ready 
for upheaval. Mighty energies, in operation 
during three half-centuries, were ready for 
consolidation. These were soon to confront 
the potencies from without, of which the 
American Perry was herald and leader. 
Should both make impact only for mutual 
destruction, or create a new resultant of 
forces ? The answer to-day is clear. A new 
nation, leavened with Christianity, girded 
with modern weapons of war and engines for 
the victories of peace, with her face to the 
future and every nerve quivering with the 
delight and enthusiasm of progress, stands 
ready to share with the Anglo-Saxon peoples 
the supremacy of the Pacific. 

So in the Philippines, latent energies long 
gathering in force came to explosion even 
before the appearance of the American Com- 

4 



The Signal Gun at Manila 

modore. The significance of this revolt of 
natives has hardly yet been understood in 
America. Even before the arrival of one 
American soldier on land, the Spanish system 
crumbled and fell. Will the forces from 
within and without clash to ruin, or coalesce 
as one ? Can any one hold back the impetus 
of the American people, or suppress the ex- 
pansive force and sure trend of our commerce ? 
Already we are the greatest traders with the 
Philippines, next to the British, while with 
China and Japan our traffic shows a steady 
increase. 

On the one hand is the certain enlargement 
of our hopes and ambitions, with the control of 
a mighty share of the trade of China and the 
densely populated lands adjoining and archi- 
pelagoes of the Pacific. On the other is the 
yearning of long-oppressed islanders for good 
government and for life worth living. Are 
we to have on the soil of the Philippines a 
permanent collision, or a new parallelogram 
of forces ? Better overrate than underrate 
the Fihpinos. They are not all barbarians. 
Lack of discrimination in dealing with Orien- 
tals is fatal to all success in government. 

5 



America in the East 

How does Dewey's victory make alignment 
with other events, such as use of the magnetic 
needle on shipboard, Columbus's discovery, 
the application of steam to navigation, the 
opening of China, Japan, and Korea, the 
steady movement of Americans westward? 
Shall we answer such questions in the inter- 
ests of selfish ease, or of a lust for conquest, 
a thirst for imperialism, with a view only 
to the immediate balancing of income and 
expense? Or shall our heredity, unsought 
opportunity which seems providential invita- 
tion, history, religion, convictions of duty, 
faith in God, in democracy, and in ourselves, 
have also a voice ? 

Whatever the ultimate disposition of the 
Philippines may be — and we cannot well 
see at present how they can come other 
than under American rule — it is evident that 
the moral problem equals in importance the 
political. The American people will never 
hold colonies in the Spanish, French, or the 
abandoned Dutch or British style. Slavery is 
over. Forced labor of natives can no longer 
be, for we are mostly of the " Anglo-Saxon " 
breed ; our political morals recognize that 

6 



The Signal Gun at Manila 

revolutions do not go backward. Bad history- 
does not repeat itself, when a better conscience 
rules. The Philippines, if under the Ameri- 
can flag, will never be a mere " plantation " 
or " possession " to be worked only for the 
profit of the conquerors. American accept- 
ance means a sacred trust in the interests of 
civilization, and the education and elevation 
of the natives, whatever their creed, color, or 
previous condition, to the status of intelhgent 
freemen. It is impossible to consider the 
problem as political only. Ours must be at 
least the newer English way ; and better, if 
possible. The American flag over the Philip- 
pines must, will, be a " symbol of light and 
law." 



CHAPTER II 

WHAT IS OUR PROBLEM? 

WHAT is the problem ? Let us look 
first at ourselves and our moral and 
political resources. To help us in this, 
history gives guideboards pointing to the 
future. Here is a nation, true child of 
the Reformation, and the heir of the Dutch 
revolt against Spain and of the centuries 
of British liberty. Its soil was won by 
revolution, or, more exactly, by resisting 
revolution from without. In the necessary 
war which secured union of States, it was led 
by a man who, as an English subject, had 
been a thorough believer in a right interpre- 
tation of the doctrine of national expansion, 
and who, as an American, held to the doctrine 
even more firmly. Washington was con- 
vinced that the French had no right where 
they had fixed themselves — that is, on 
ground now covered by Ohio and Pennsyl- 
vania. Was he a jingo ? He, with our 

8 



what is Our Problem ? 

fathers who claimed to be good Englishmen, 
was more obedient to the spirit of English 
law and freedom than were King George and 
his advisers. Having won in their contest, 
Americans began, with the assistance of their 
hardy pioneers, to wrest the lands between 
the Mississippi and the Pacific from the red 
hunters and fishermen who refused to im- 
prove it, and from the absentee landlords — 
France and Spain. Our people obtained by- 
arms, diplomacy, and purchase the territory 
which is now ours, holding the northwestern 
Pacific coast through vigilance against British 
claims and by actual settlement. They held 
to the dictum of Hideyoshi of Japan, that 
" the earth is the earth's earth." Although 
in this world there is, or can be, rarely such 
a thing as absolute righteousness in any act 
of statecraft, they tried to act as honorably 
and as justly as they could. They have 
made Hawaii part of the United States, with 
the same motives. Now that, without any 
expectation or previous desire, or by taking 
any means except those in obedience to the 
laws of nations, even of necessity — the same 
that drove the Beggars of the Sea to capture 

9 



America in the East 

Brill — they have obtained Manila and virtu- 
ally the Philippine archipelago, can the 
momentum of over a century be stopped? 
Ought it to be checked? 

Supposing that, through arms and diplo- 
macy, the ownership of the whole archipelago 
has become vested in the United States, and 
our flag is hoisted over it, from the Bashee 
Islands to Tawee-Tawee, the problem is one 
which promises to tax our resources and test 
ouV ability to rule alien races. It is to gov- 
ern eight or ten millions of people of many 
ethnic §tocks, though mostly of the Malay 
race, speaking forty different languages. Un- 
less we do not know the character or temper 
of Americans, the problem includes also the 
education and moral elevation of the Filipinos 
and the sharing with them of our privileges. 
No wonder we need counsel before action. 
There ought to be at once formed a Colonial 
Association to study the whole field, past, 
present, and future. Yet it is absurd to wait 
until theory and practice are perfect before we 
grapple with the task. Experience is the best 
teacher. 

These new Philippians, perhaps yet to be- 

lO 



what is Our Problem ? 

come fellow-citizens, as even men once slaves 
have become, are scattered over hundreds of 
islands, though the larger members of the 
group are not as many as the fingers of one's 
hands. The archipelago lies between the 
Japanese and the Dutch possessions. The 
islands look like a great breakwater to Indo- 
China, which is now held by the French. 
Commercially, they form the gateway to China. 
They are on the direct road to India and close 
to Australia. Can Great Britain afford to 
allow these islands, adjoining her possessions 
in North Borneo, and not far away from the 
Australian Republics, to pass into the hands 
of a hostile power ? How will France and 
Germany enjoy the sight of the American 
flag so near the possessions of Annam, and so 
tantalizingly far away from any longed-for yet 
unobtained German colony ? Do the Dutch 
take alarm ? Will they have to tax them- 
selves to build more ironclads in order to 
guard against further American ambition ? 
Does Japan fear or welcome us ? What diffi- 
culties we can conjure up ! 

At home, even greater searchings of heart 
go on. Can our system of government take 

II 



America in the East 

in the idea and actuality of colonial adminis- 
tration^ and this at the ends of the earth ? 
What do v/e know of the natives ? Are they 
improvable ? After three hundred years of 
Spanish failure, will we succeed? Can we 
take hope from the great breeders of revolt ? 
The Spaniards have left the Philippines in 
the state of a tree which, naturally fruitful, 
has by neglect become a great worms* nest, in 
which swarms of crawling, devouring, and fat- 
tened creatures have woven a horrid web over 
leaf and branch, destroying all beauty and 
fruit, and threatening the very life of the tree. 
Can we make true reformation ? Can we edu- 
cate and lift up ? Can we digest this mass of 
barbarism ? Have we not had enough of sav- 
agery, ignorance, and low types of humanity 
within our own States ? Shall we be obliged 
to fight our way and subdue the natives, 
even if Spain yields them to us ? Tremen- 
dous will then be the difficulties of maintain- 
ing navy and garrison, of keeping order and 
administering government. Can we pay our 
expenses ? Can we ever hope to give such 
people American citizenship? In comparison 
with this central problem of the Philippines, 

12 



What is Our Problem? 

the question of holding or governing other 
islands in the same part of the earth, such as 
the Ladrones and the Carolines, is small and 
subordinate. 

Yet let us beware of magnifying difficulties 
even to caricature and fright. It may help us 
to remember that this is the era of the expos- 
ure of shams. We are learning the difference 
between the painted lath and the iron, be- 
tween the canvas fort and masonry, between 
mercenaries with fans and umbrellas and dis- 
ciplined patriots holding rifles. When, in 
1856, Townsend Harris arrived at Hong- 
Kong, on the steam frigate " San Jacinto,'' a 
Chinaman brought on deck for sale a " wild 
cat." Even the epauletted sons of Mars and 
Neptune stood off nervously as the New 
York merchant-diplomatist boldly proceeded 
to unwind the defensive coils of twine and 
rope which paralyzed the creature. Even 
slight knowledge of zoology enabled him to 
see difference between panthers and pussies. 
A prolonged unwrapping, as of a mummy, 
revealed an ordinary roof-scrambler and back- 
yard vocalist, only too happy to have her arti- 
ficial spots sponged off, and, when able, to 

13 



America in the East 

stand up, lap milk, and purr. So, in like 
manner, in 1894, the colossal Chinese tiger, 
daubed out on paper, was shown by a little 
Japanese army to be a sham. Again, Dewey's 
guns showed Spain in the Far East to be only 
a painted Power. The once world-dominators 
of East and West, China and Spain, are 
now the " broken-backed tigers" of Korean 
proverb. 



14 




TowNSEND Harris, New York, il 
First Minister to Japan. 



CHAPTER III 

THE WAR A REVELATION 

DIFFICULT as the problem is, the Im- 
aginary obstacles conjured up by some 
of our editors, politicians, and nervous people, 
who do not seem to know what Americans in 
the Pacific have done and can do, remind one 
of the canvas-dragons in a Chinese procession, 
or the majority report of Joshua's spies in 
Canaan. They ought to scare no true 
Anglo-Saxon who reads his ancestral his- 
tory, nor any man who takes Christianity 
seriously, nor any statesman who knows the 
American people outside of academies and 
sanctums. 

Personally, I find myself unable to see the 
reality of the so-called impossibilities, or to 
feel the dreadful ness of the risks involved. 
To say nothing of what British and Dutch 
have accomplished, see what even Russians 
and Asiatics can achieve : Three centuries 

IS 



America in the East 

ago the Russians crossed the Ural Mountains 
on their march to the Sea of Japan. Mus- 
covites are able to civilize, in their way, the 
nomads of Central Asia and to make of 
Siberia a second Russia. They did this 
within the period between Raleigh and Mc- 
Kinley. The Chinese have been able in less 
time to absorb the Manchus, " the wild and 
horsey Tartars " of the North, and show to 
the world that the men whom European 
monks thought came up directly out of Tar- 
tarus are " the most improvable race in Asia." 
The Japanese have illustrated the self-regen- 
erative power of even a hermit nation. If 
we, the descendants in ideas, law, traditions, 
and largely in blood, of the British, cannot do 
what they have done, then I confess to sur- 
prise and confusion. But what they have 
done we can do. Once, after a snow-storm 
in the mountains of inland Japan, I wished 
to push on through a path which my servant 
and companions said could not be traversed, 
for it was covered with snow too deep for 
either sandals or snow-shoes. " Impossible, 
impossible ! " they cried ; but just then a 
Japanese travelling pedler emerged from the 

i6 



The War a Revelation 

banned direction, and, hearing the prophe- 
cies of negation, cried out, " Dekimashta ! " 
(I have done it). As he did it, so did I, 
taking dinner that same day at the end of 
the route. " DeWitt's Deep" still tells in 
Dutch waters how a plucky lawyer, using 
both the lead and the inductive method, 
could show a path even to sailors fettered 
by tradition. 

Dewey's was a signal gun. The war has 
been a revelation, compelling Americans to 
make themselves acquainted with their own 
pioneers, who have been abroad in the Pacific 
since the Revolution. It is, indeed, time for 
some Rip Van Winkles to wake up and look 
around. The American flag was carried 
round the world and American business was 
begun at Canton in China in 1784. For over 
a century our merchants, sailors, missionaries, 
diplomatists, and navy, while acquainting 
themselves with this part of the earth, have 
made our country known abroad. Dewey's 
fleet and achievements were not new things, 
nor, with all due credit to the Admiral and 
his able assistants, was there anything espe- 
cially wonderful, when we remember what 
2 17 



America in the East 

Americans, with their limited resources, in 
times past had already accomplished in the 
waters of China, Japan, Korea, and Malayasia. 
Dangers as great, battles as wonderful, vic- 
tories as signal, have been won by the might 
and valor of our officers and sailors. Space 
does not allow us, in this first paper, to tell 
the story in detail. Relatively, the con- 
quests of diplomacy have been as striking 
and significant as any which the Paris Com- 
mission of 1898 have won or are likely to 
win. Our missionaries have toiled and 
wrought, depositing the leaven, yes, hiding 
it, in the Oriental mass for the making 
of new nations. Furthermore, the United 
States already owns many islands on the 
bosom of the Pacific, and an amount of 
territory in this part of the world which 
shows that we are far from strangers in 
it, or that in possessing and governing the 
Philippines we should be attempting some- 
thing wholly novel. Barber, Palmyra, Pros- 
pect, Fanning, Christmas, Starbuck, Penrhyn, 
Swan, Pitt, McLeary, Hull, and Enderby 
islands or groups are ours, besides Pago Pago 
Bay in the Samoan archipelago, and Hawaii, 

18 



The War a Revelation 

with probably the Ladrone and Caroline 
Islands.* 

* After Inquiry at the State and Treasury Departments 
for an official list of islands in the Pacific Ocean claimed by the 
United States, I received the following : 

Treasury Department, Bureau of Navigation, 
Washington, D.C, February 24, 1899. 

Rev. William Elliot Griffis, Ithaca, N. Y. : 

Sir, — In compliance with the request made in your letter, 
dated the 20th instant, this office transmits herewith a list of 
certain guano islands understood to have been bonded. 
Respectfully yours, 

Eugene T. Chamberlain, 

Commissioner. 

List of Guano Islands, appertaining to the United States, 
bonded under the Act of August 18, 1856, as reported by 
the First Comptroller of the Treasury, under date of Decem- 
ber 22, 1885 : — Baker's or New Nantucket, Jarvis, Navassa, 
Rowland or Nowlands, Johnson's Islands, Barren or Starve, 
McKean, Phoenix, Christmas, Maiden's Islands, America 
Islands, Anne's, Barber's, Bauman's, Birnie's, Caroline, Clar- 
ence, Dangerous Islands, Dangers Rock, David's , Duke of 
York, Enderbury's, Farmer's, Favorite, Flint, Flint's, Frances, 
Frienhaven, Gardner's, Gallego, Ganges, Groninque, Hum- 
phrey's, Hemn's, Lideron's, Low Islands, Mackin, Mary 
Letitia's, Mary's, Mathew's, Nassau, Palmyros, Penhuyn's 
(Penrhyn?), Pescado, Phoenix, Prospect, Quiros, Rierson's, 
Rogewein's Islands (Roggeveen ?), Samarang Islands, Sarah 
Anne, Sidney's Islands, Starbuck or Hero, Staver's, Walker's, 
Washington or Uahuga. 

19 



America in the East 

In plotting 'and mapping out the ocean's 
bottom, in sounding its deeps, in finding out 
its tides, currents, and winds, its phenomena 
of air and water, in surveying submarine 
plateaus and valleys for future telegraph 
cables, in accurately locating its islands and 
measuring its landmarks, in gaining knowl- 
edge from the Arctic Ocean, in naval exploits, 
in punishing cannibal savages, wreckers, and 
pirates (in this often joining hands with their 
British brothers), the Americans, up to the 
time of the Civil War, were behind none in 
exploiting this great domain, this middle- 
earth sea of the future. If the United States 
were, after the manner of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, to claim the land first discovered by her 
own explorers, she would have a mighty area 
beyond her continental frontier, and the map 
of the United States of America would be en- 
larged so as to show a large share in the own- 
ership of the earth's surface. As certainly as 
Russia claims Siberia and Great Britain Aus- 
tralia, so may our Government call the whole 
northwestern part of Greenland, Lincoln and 
Grant Land, from the 78th to the 83d degree 
north latitude, besides the Antarctic continent, 

20 



The War a Revelation 

estimated to contain 2,000,000 square miles. 
United States territory. How strange does 
the very suggestion (as if it were a novelty) 
of our being a VV^orld-Power seem ! As a 
matter of simple fact, the United States in 
i860 were in closer touch with the world at 
large then than at any time since, until this 
wonder-year of 1898. 

Our American explorers, diplomatists, mer- 
chants, missionaries, educators in the Pacific 
have not made a failure of their delicate 
and difficult tasks. They have shown what 
American wit, grit, pluck, perseverance, and 
character can do at the ends of the earth, and 
even amidst the most unpromising circum- 
stances, among savages and semi-savages. 
With all due respect to our academic friends 
in the sanctum and study, we believe that the 
story of American triumphs in the Far East 
affords a surer guide for decision and action 
than certain recent utterances which seem to 
smell more of the lamp than of outdoor 
acquaintance with facts. Indeed, some de- 
liverances against expansion savor more of 
weariness and despair than of real insight into 
the problem. 

21 



America m the East 

My own study of hermit nations, the ori- 
gins of their blighting policy and the results 
of itj does not lead me to recommend a like 
course of action to Americans. The dangers 
of enlargement are undeniably great ; those 
of hermitage are greater. We want no na- 
tional foot-binding. The forced inclusion of 
the American people between the two oceans, 
or the exclusion of foreigners and those who 
disagree with you in opinions or religion, is 
suicidal. At least it seems to me to show 
timidity, if not cowardice, to shrink at hold- 
ing land or attempting government beyond 
our borders. It is too much like those church 
fathers in New England who feared for de- 
mocracy in church government anywhere west 
of the Hudson River. It savors too much 
of the embargoism attempted early in this 
century, or of the dogmatism of a certain edi- 
tor who twenty-five years ago in Yokohama 
showed me on a map of the world the regions 
in which Christianity could never flourish or 
civilization ever be propagated, or of Ben- 
jamin Kidd, who preaches that white men 
cannot live in the tropics. 

In reality, our own history, from Washing- 

22 



The War a Revelation 

ton, the soldier beyond the borders, and Jef- 
ferson, the statesman who took over the 
Mississippi Valley, dov/n to the recent war 
with Spain, which made a revelation rather 
than a revolution in American ideas and opin- 
ions, is one long romance of conquest, ex- 
hibiting the victories of American colonization, 
arms, and diplomacy. 

Are we now confronted v\^ith the responsi^ 
bility of governing and civilizing eight mil- 
lions of people once considered at the ends of 
the earth ? Yet now, in days of steam and 
electricity, these are but a few days distant. 
This call to new duties comes in a time 
when the potencies of science, the harnessed 
forces of nature, and the printing-press have 
reached a development undreamed of a cen- 
tury ago, and when we have among our peo- 
ple an interest and an intelligence concerning 
foreign countries and races which was un- 
known two generations ago. Now the China- 
man is among us. The once hermit Japanese 
is commonplace on our streets. The Korean 
is in our schools. Besides our knowledge of 
the Orientals, small indeed, but wonderful 
compared with that of our fathers, we have 

23 



America in the East 

hundreds of Americans residing in Asiatic 
countries ; a large proportion, perhaps an 
overwhelming majority, being teachers and 
missionaries. It is evident, then, that from 
the point of view of acquaintance with Asiatic 
people, and also of our increased equipment 
as to mechanical forces, we are prepared to do 
what our fathers could not dream of doing. 



24 



CHAPTER IV 

CAN WE GOVERN THE PHILIPPINES? 

BUT have we the political genius and 
facilities to attempt the difficult art of 
governing barbarous or semi-barbarous races ? 
Besides political talent, have we the moral 
reserves required for investment of character 
and influence? Will trade warrant the ex- 
pense of government ? Is it worth while ? 

We answer : Both the Dutch and the 
British have displayed an aptitude for govern- 
ing Asiatic peoples ; the former in a good, 
the latter in a better way. We are their 
children. What they have done we can do. 
Their history is our mirror. The same 
general elements in their civilization are in 
our own, and " blood is warmer than water." 
The Scottish and English educational method 
trains individuals in self-reliance, makes men 
both independent and co-operative, raises up 
self-governing nations, even while it gives the 

25 



America in the East 

lower races a chance to rise, for it helps them 
to do so. 

In India, the British people were once con- 
fronted with the problem of possessing and 
governing one of the greatest conglomerates 
of nations, languages, religions, and political 
systems to be found on earth. In reality, 
there was no India in any sense of political 
unity. The term was only a geographical ex- 
pression. Despite Macaulay and those insular 
historians who are as childish in their national 
conceit as are our own, no British army ever 
conquered India or held it. Yet, profiting by 
a discovery made by a Frenchman, that sepoys 
could be used as military allies, the British 
made unity in place of division, and substituted 
order for anarchy. By dividing and ruling, 
by employing native troops, by rising to the 
necessities of the occasion, through reform of 
their own civil service, and through the sober- 
ing influence of great responsibilities, our own 
kin beyond sea have been able to hold nearly 
a quarter of a billion of differing races and 
creeds loyal to the throne. 

In Insulinde, or Island-India, the Dutch, 
by political ability, wisdom, practical com- 

26 



Can We Govern the Philippines ? 

mon sense, and the correct use of the words 
"Allah'' and of "Kismet," rule thirty-three 
millions of Malays so quietly that the world 
in general hardly knows that there is any 
Insulinde. 

If they can do so well, why not we ? Is it 
conceit or the old Fourth of July spirit that 
gives ground for this faith ? I cannot see, as 
some of our editors and bishops and statesmen 
seem to, that Americans have not the genius 
or the ability or the political virtue for under- 
taking colonies or governing the Philippines. 
Somehow I have a high respect for the stamina 
and general qualities of our naval and regular 
army officers. I even believe that we have 
some pure public men with political ability, 
and that we have inherited at least a portion 
of the Anglo-Saxon genius for political science 
and practice. The nation that produced a 
Ward of China, a Sam Armstrong of Hamp- 
ton, to say nothing of the " fathers,'' oup-ht 
not to quail before the task of to-day. 

I believe in the sobering influence of re- 
sponsibility. All our great national crises 
called out able men who v^^ould else have been 
" village Hampdens." How differently is our 

27 



America in the East 

Fourth of July now celebrated from the same 
day in the fifties ! What a wonderful change 
in the cast of thought, in the orations and 
editorials, as compared with those of forty 
years ago ! Our national greatness, bringing 
increased burdens and more complex and del- 
icate duties, has given a more serious temper 
to our thought and word. It is true that 
men who live in academic seclusion, or along- 
side of mighty bosses, or who have not seen 
their own lines of planned reform run as they 
hoped, take dark vievv^s of the future, imagin- 
ing that the American populace is inflammable 
and hopelessly boss-ridden. Some will even 
bring up Alaska as a not particularly encour- 
aging example. Others will argue, from the 
mercantile point of view, that only civilized 
men make good customers, and that " barba- 
rians " will not buy steel rails, optical instru- 
ments, or editions de luxe. 

But we cling to the idea, having seen it 
often illustrated, that, in individuals, societies, 
and nations, great responsibilities sober and 
develop — in lads fresh from college, in 
women left orphans or widows, in maidens 
reduced in a day from affluence to penury, in 

28 




The Crown Prince of Korea, 1899, 



Can We Govern the Philippines ? 

men many, and in a Vice-President engaged 
one day in the lowest kind of political truck- 
ling and vote-buying quickly becoming one 
of the most honored of Presidents. History 
shows also what little countries, Greece, Hol- 
land, Japan, have done under the stress of 
duty and danger. We have known young 
statesmen in Nippon who expected to hatch 
the egg of new national life by warming it in 
the fire which they had built, even hoping 
within ten years to make Japan equal to 
Great Britain. We have seen also how the 
realities of responsibility cooled and humbled 
them, though they bated not a jot of heart 
or hope, but persevered even when the awful 
complexity of the problems was realized. 

In any event, we ought not to take coun- 
sel of our fears, but rather of our hopes. The 
wisdom of the discouraged is not wholesome. 
There are those who lose the good they might 
win by fearing to attempt. A great poet tells 
of one who " made through cowardice the 
great refusal." The happiness of millions 
and our own national safety may depend 
upon the courage and wisdom displayed in 
1899 and 1900. 

29 



CHAPTER V 

THE ANCIENT TROPIC V/ORLD 

THERE is a striking difference between 
ancient and modern civilization. The 
former, though varied, was confined to only 
a few regions favored by nature. The latter, 
looked upon as the common property, or at 
least the possibility, of the whole race, tends 
to a single type. In the early world, there 
were many civilizations. In the future, there 
can be but one — the Christian. 

Mankind's early home and development 
were determined by natural causes. Only in 
warm river valleys, rich in water, sunshine, 
fertile soil, and facilities for comfort, was there 
anything that we can call civilization. On the 
rest of this planet, men roamed as nomads 
with flocks, were hunters and fishermen, or 
dwelt in caves, on piles over lakes, or on 
islands in the sea. Their extant memorials 
are now in fragments of tools or weapons 

30 



The Ancient Tropic World 

buried under the soil, in shell heaps or 
mounds ; for, in history, " life without letters 
is death." 

In only four places of the very ancient 
world did men rise to writing, the cultivation of 
the intellect, and the expression of their tastes, 
hopes, and aspirations in art, architecture, 
and literature. These were in the valleys of 
the Nile, of Mesopotamia, of the Yellow and 
the Yang-tse and of the Indus and Ganges 
Rivers, — that is, in Egypt, Assyria, India, 
and China. The history of primeval civiliza- 
tion belongs to these four countries. The 
Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans caught 
the light from the East and reflected it west- 
ward and northward, for the benefit of the 
Indo-Germanic races. The Hindus shed 
more or less glow upon central peninsular 
Asia, while China was the mother of civiliza- 
tion east of the Ganges. Speaking roughly, 
all civilization began within tropical or sub- 
tropical regions, and has moved northward 
and southward. 

What made the old nations acquainted with 
each other and attracted them to barter and 
exchange of ideas and products ? What first 

31 



America in the East 

started the caravan over land, and sent the 
daring manners to sea ? 

The answer, in outline, is clear. In the old 
days when human diet was very simple, those 
who rose to wealth and leisure craved variety. 
Merchant and mariner were tempted beyond 
the warm valleys and the beaten tracks to get 
the fruits of the equatorial island world in the 
Far East. For perfume, attractiveness of 
person, delights at the table and indulgence in 
hours of leisure, and for the preservation of 
the body as the sheath of immortality, spices 
were needed. Tropical products first made 
foreign commerce. What, for the most part, 
are the Arabian Nights' Entertainments but 
the fairy tales of traffic by land and sea? 
They have been gathered from India, Persia, 
and Egypt. In earliest Bible story, we see the 
Midianite merchants moving across the deserts 
westward, down into Egypt, the great market 
of the ancient world in the West. They 
bring balm and spicery. The smelling-bottles 
and vials of Chinese porcelain found in the 
older tombs in the Nile Valley were filled with 
perfume from the far Orient. When the 
Hebrew nomads out of Egypt consoHdated 

32 



The Ancient Tropic World 






their kingdom and built palaces and a temple 
in Jerusalem, they imported more than " ivory, 
apes, and peacocks " from tropical India. In 
the Song of Songs are enumerated the per- 
fumes, powders, and spices which come only 
from distant Insulinde. Chinese, Telugu, 
and Malay words stand on the Biblical page. 
Silk and spice from the Golden Chersonese 
and the islands adjoining compelled Greek 
and Roman enterprise and carried temptation 
into the minds of the merchants and the 
pockets of the wealthy. In mediaeval days, the 
trade with the tropics and spice lands gave 
Venice her prosperity. When the Portuguese 
discovered the Cape passage, the sceptre of 
commercial prosperity moved westward to 
Lisbon. When the Hollanders in turn 
plucked from the girdle of Portugal the keys 
of the eastern spice regions, Amsterdam 
became the most prosperous city in the world. 
When the Dutch by extortion abused their 
monopoly, the EngHsh formed their East India 
Company, and London rose to be the queen 
of the world^s commerce — as San Francisco 
is destined to become. Control of the tropics 
dictates the history of trade. 
3 33 



America in the East 

The tropics include between them all those 
points on the earth's surface over which the 
sun is ever vertical. They mark a great belt 
on the earth's surface between Cuba, Hawaii, 
and Formosa on the north, and Madagascar, 
Australia, and Paraguay on the south, about 
47 degrees in width, which is studded with 
Micronesia and Polynesia, the West and the 
East Indies, the richest part of Africa, the 
Spice Islands, Central America, and Brazil. 
Cancer and Capricorn are the lines marked by 
the turning of the sun, or, rather, where the 
sun seems to turn, the names being taken 
from the zodiac signs in which the sun seems 
to be at the time. These are the most 
northerly and southerly bounds of earth's 
space in which the sun's rays fall vertically. 

North and south of these lines the sunshine 
is tempered. Within them the sun is directly 
overhead. The tilting or leaning of the 
earth upon the axis gives us, and people 
between the tropics and the poles, variety and 
extremes of weather. Within the tropics are 
the lands of eternal sunshine, in which weather 
and climate are uniform. 

Between Cancer and Capricorn, the conti- 

34 



The Ancient Tropic World 

nent of North America becomes attenuated, 
but its islands are numerous. Here South 
America has the bulk of its land, its largest 
gulf and longest watercourse. The greater 
area, the greatest rivers, and the most fertile 
lands of Africa are within the tropics. Half 
of India, the wonderful Malay world, the 
archipelago of Spice Islands, including the 
Philippines, the Carolines, and the Ladrones, 
are in this zone, and so also is nearly half of 
Australia. 

In the tropic belt, animal life is amazingly 
rich, prolific, powerful, and valuable to man. 
Here also are unmeasured areas of forest and 
jungle, with wood of every fibre, fruit of all 
sorts, the richest vegetable products, with 
those gums, drugs, and spices that have for 
ages fired the imagination and stirred the 
energy of explorer, mariner, merchant, and 
devotee of luxury and civilization. Here, too, 
are races of men in great variety as to ethnic 
stocks, language, temperament, character, and 
physique. The great majority show outwardly 
the results of long generations under the sun. 
They are swarthy, black, or brown. Man 
himself seems to thrive like a weed. Here is 

35 



America in the East 

the region of extremes in intensity of human 
passion, as well as of oddity in animal, marine, 
and vegetable forms of life. Plant, beast, and 
man show amazing fecundity. Here, too, on 
the one hand, are the things pungent, acrid, 
aromatic, and perfumed, growing from the 
earth ; while, on the other hand, we have the 
poisonous and the deadly in plant, beast, and 
man. Malaria, heat, moisture, and climatic 
influences, intensified, react upon the human 
being, making him what he is. Above him, 
in the air, are potencies, tornadoes and ty- 
phoons, to which his brother in the temperate 
zone is comparatively a stranger, while beneath 
him, frequent and terrible, are earthquakes, 
tidal waves, and volcanoes. 



36 




CHAPTER VI 

THE TROPICS IN MODERN DAYS 

IGHTY indeed is now the difference 
in our knowledge of this world from 
that current in Columbus*s time. Then there 
was a great Sea of Darkness. The Pacific was 
unknown. The southern oceans and the 
Arctic waters existed only in myth and fable. 
No lines of faith, born of true science, for sure 
guidance over the deep, then encircled the 
globe with their meridians and parallels. 
Now the continents are unveiled. The islands 
are charted, the currents marked, the floor 
beneath the sea is measured and mapped. 
The law of storms is known. Distances are 
calculated. There are ocean lanes and streets, 
along which, as over a ferry, steady trafiic 
plies its course. The lines of many a sub- 
marine cable have given the world a new 
nervous system. What was once obstacle is 
now easy highway. In fact, like the feather 
which the eagle furnishes for the shaft that 

37 



America in the East 

brings it down, so the very elements for its 
own conquest have been yielded by the tropic 
world. 

As the civilization of the modern differs 
from that of the ancient world, so also does the 
modern from the ancient man. No longer 
confined to the warm and fertile river valleys, 
the civilized man pushes out into all quarters 
of the globe, obeying the divine command to 
replenish and subdue the earth. He makes 
of the ocean a pathway, and of the valley a 
highway. He uses the very resources of the 
tropics to overcome their deadly blight, malaria 
and fever. The best man will overcome the 
most. In those very regions once thought 
most deadly to the white man, and in the 
warm seas once unknown to him, the man 
from the islands of cold and cloud, the man 
who has been most free to hear and interpret 
the divine commands, has v/on his greatest 
triumphs. 

Does it rain torrents in the hot lands, 
where vegetation grows most rankly? It is 
the very tropics themselves that supply the 
best waterproof material. For ages the milky 
sap of certain plants called caoutchouc ran to 

38 




> 
O 
PQ 



Pi 
O 

W 
K 



The Tropics in Modern Days 

waste or was but slightly utilized. Temperate 
climates will produce it, but only in the tropics 
does it become of economic importance. Yet 
not until 1820 did the use of this material 
extend much beyond the rubbing out of 
pencil-marks. Then Goodyear, the Yankee 
PhiladelphiaUj after adding sulphur, showed 
its marvellous uses. He produced a substance 
which for elasticity, protection from damp and 
wet, power to endure heat and cold, and to 
be moulded to all forms, as well as in appli- 
cation to manifold uses, excels all others. 
Physically, it is a non-conductor, but me- 
chanically, it is made the most wonderful of 
all conductors. By it man has been enabled 
to surmount innumerable obstacles. To-day 
Great Britain alone imports twenty-five 
million dollars' worth of this article, which 
enables the white man to bear so much better 
than of old the drawbacks of tropical life. 

Look at quinine, which missionaries intro- 
duced to the world. By killing the bacilli 
which cause fever, the white man is able to 
live in nature's steam-bath at the equator, 
under the vertical sun, in tropical jungles, and 
to pierce and penetrate Africa and peninsular 

39 



America in the East 

Asia in every direction. In many parts of 
the world in which it was once considered 
certain death for a white man to sleep out- 
doors for a single night, whole armies can now 
be quartered. Indeed, it may be said that no 
region of the earth is now inaccessible. The 
cannibal, the coast murderer, and the man-thief 
must give up their game, for the chastising 
European, with quinine in his blood, can reach 
them. From being frightfully costly, it has, 
through wide cultivation, become ridiculously 
cheap. The cinchona-tree has been planted 
in many countries, and its derivatives are put 
to manifold uses on land and sea. With pith 
helmet, havelock, and duck suit, the white 
man, as soldier, traveller, trader, and mission- 
ary, braves the sun and his enemies. 

Surgical and medical wonders, once looked 
upon as miracles, can now be achieved by the 
v/ise application of drugs and medicines pro- 
duced only in the tropics. Our hot drinks 
on the table, which have done so much to 
diminish drunkenness, to cheer but not in- 
ebriate, to advance noticeably the social con- 
dition of woman by installing her in dignity 
at the head of the table — to say nothing of 

40 



The Tropics in Modern Days 

comfort and delight to thousands — are the 
products of the tropics. Coffee is now a 
necessity rather than a luxury, and over 
175,0005000 worth is imported into Great 
Britain yearly. Tea, enriching our social life, 
cheering the poor, the weak, and the aged, is 
the gift of sub-tropical regions. The Anglo- 
Saxon, having first made a most disastrous 
failure by a political application of tea in 
Boston, took China's herb to India and 
Ceylon. Now, nine-tenths of the fifty million 
dollars' worth of tea imported into Great 
Britain comes from India and Ceylon. Cocoa, 
which a century ago was a curiosity, has now 
become in its various forms the food or drink 
of millions, the British alone using about 
forty million pounds a year. 

The fibres of the tropics enrich not only 
the northern nations, but the natives who 
grow them. The modern wealth of Dundee 
comes from the working of jute, which last 
century was a curiosity only, but of which 
Great Britain nov/ imports annually over 
twenty million dollars' worth. While all 
Europe in 1895 employed 2,500,000 bales, 
the Bengal spinners who manufacture, with 

41 



America in the East 

the aid of steam machinery, bags, canvas, 
manila paper, etc., consume 2,574,000 bales 
of jute fibre. 

Cotton was once a sub-tropical product, but 
is now cultivated in the temperate zone. 
Though its name occurs in the Hebrew Script- 
ures, and its home is probably in India, it was, 
until modern times, unknown either in 
America or China or Africa. In our land, 
the first centennial of its introduction was 
celebrated but a few years ago. Yet such are 
American energy, skill, and invention that the 
tropics have been almost utterly robbed of 
this most useful article, and the world looks 
to America rather than the hot lands to supply 
the needs of the race. Great Britain has won 
a vast part of her wealth from the cotton 
industry, while the United States follows 
closely in the manufactured product, and 
exports millions of pounds to Japan annually. 

DyestufFs, drugs, oils, and sweets from the 
tropics keep our fleets ever on the seas. In 
the superb volumes printed by the Govern- 
ment, entitled " Commercial Relations of the 
United States with Foreign Countries during 
the years 1895 and 1896," we find that in the 

42 



The Tropics in Modern Days 

latter year there were imported, among other 
things of tropical origin, cinchona bark, 
cochineal, logwood and its products, camphor 
and gums, indigo, licorice, opium, sulphur, 
cocoa, coffee, jute, manila and other fibres, 
fruits, gutta-percha, ivory, rice, silk, spices, 
sponges, sugars, tea, tin, tobacco, mahogany, 
and other articles. These show in detail a 
wonderfully assorted list, and exhibit an 
amount of American commerce directly or 
indirectly with the tropics which is surprising 
even to one moderately familiar with the 
general subject of our dependence upon the 
earth's middle zone for comforts and necessi- 
ties. Nearly one-third of our total imports 
are from tropical regions, and the values of 
some of the items are enormous, such as coffee, 
$96,000,000 (1895) ; sugar, 181,486,867; tea, 
$^3^3T^9^334- (1895); tobacco, 115,225,920; 
india-rubber, 1 1 9, 1 64,047 ; fruits, f 1 6,026, 1 09 ; 
making, with other articles, a total of nearly 
$221,000,000. If we call the tropical belt 
sixty degrees wide, then we have a total value 
of about $250,000,000 of imports from these 
hot countries and islands ; or about one-third 
of the entire imports for 1895, — that is, 

43 



America in the East 

^731,000^00. Our import trade is nearly 
one-half with Great Britain and her colonies ; 
but of the other half, 196,000,000, or nearly 
one-fourth of that half, is with tropical 
countries. We trade with the English-speak- 
ing nations and with tropical peoples to the 
extent of $1,300,000,000, and with the rest 
of the world to the extent of $53 5,000,000. 
Let us now look at the nation which, after 
the British, has been most successful in colo- 
nization and in achievements under a tropical 
sun. The Dutch budget for 1898 estimates 
the following to be sold in the Netherlands : 
Coffee, $8,640,000; cinchona, $48,800; tin, 
$2,680,000; and to be sold in India, opium, 
$6,880,000; coffee, $3,480,000. In 1895 the 
trade of the Dutch East Indies reached a total 
of $160,000,000. The trade of the Philip- 
pines in 1896 was estimated at $31,500,000, 
and in 1897, even with the war and disturb- 
ances, $28,876,012, of which $4,488,377 was 
American. The British trade with the West 
Indies, British Honduras, and British Guiana 
in 1896 was $29,500,000. 



44 




CHAPTER VII 

CAN THE WHITE MAN LIVE IN THE 
TROPICS ? 

■R, BENJAMIN KIDD, author of 
"Social Evolution/' has written a 
suggestive little book on " The Control of 
the Tropics." But though we accept his in- 
vitation to consider the importance of the 
theme and the duty of the best type of man 
(v/hich we consider, on the whole, to be the 
English-speaking man) to occupy aiid control 
the tropics, yet we are very far from accepting 
his notion, which he asserts and reiterates as if 
it were a dogma of science. He maintains 
that the white man cannot live in the tropics, 
or be acclimated within them ; that to make 
the attempt is necessarily a blunder of the 
first magnitude, and that all experiments based 
upon the idea are mere idle and empty enter- 
prises, foredoomed to failure. 

I cannot so think. I believe with him that 
the idea of exploiting any tropical region by 

45 



America in the East 

regarding it primarily as an estate to be 
worked for gain must be abandoned ; that 
to surround the regions thus occupied^ with 
laws and tariffs operating in the exclusive 
interest of the power in possession is also 
folly and a retrograde principle. I believe, fur- 
ther, that to develop a permanently resident 
European caste, cut off from the conditions, 
political, moral, and physical, which have pro- 
duced the European, means degradation and 
failure. The tropics must be governed as a 
trust for civilization and with a full sense of the 
responsibility of such a trust involved. We 
must respect native systems of religion, native 
institutions, and political rights. Those who 
administer the government for us and repre- 
sent our civilization must be kept in direct 
and immediate contact with the standard of 
that civilization at its best. Even the acts 
of the government must be within the closest 
range of continual scrutiny of the public mind 
at home. 

The modern man, with his more complex 
life, is even more dependent upon the product 
of the tropics than were his ancient ancestors. 
Yet it has sometimes been supposed that the 

46 



Can White Men Live in Tropics ? 

tropics were never meant for the white man 
to live in or to greatly concern himself about. 
This region of the earth is supposed by some 
to be the white man's graveyard. How can 
Americans live in the Philippines, for example, 
where the thermometer stands on an average 
so far above the record between Florida and 
Maine ? Many regions in the tropics are like 
a steam-bathj and the heat and moisture to- 
gether are oppressive apparently beyond the 
power of the Anglo-Saxon to endure. 

Yet what are the facts ? The English and 
Dutch have for centuries lived not only with- 
in the tropics but along the equator. Some 
of the most brilliant achievements of the 
Anglo-Saxon are to be noted in this region. 
More wonderful than many a fairy romance 
is the story of the British conquest of India 
and of the making of the Queen's highway 
to India and China, and the government of 
300,000,000 people on 2,000,000 square 
miles of Asiatic territory, mostly tropical. 
Who doubts that within a few years there 
will be a highway of iron built by British 
capital from the Cape of Good Hope to the 
Isthmus of Suez? In southern India, in 

47 



America in the East 

Burma and the Malay Peninsula, in Hong- 
Kong and Borneo and the islands of the sea, 
see what British energy in government, edu- 
cation, engineering, and irrigation has done. 
The British hold their own grandly in Jamaica, 
Guiana, and Sierra Leone. In tropical regions, 
hundreds of missionaries toil year after year, 
illustrating gloriously what wonders civilized 
man, with common sense and a knowledge 
of environment and proper precautions, can 
achieve and endure. Despite the climate and 
deadly malaria, the venom of insect, reptile, 
and plant, and the malice of evil men, thou- 
sands of men shov/ that one can spend the 
best working years of the average and even 
of a long life in the tropics. I have myself 
met scores and know of hundreds (including 
a line of seafaring ancestors) of soldiers, 
government officers, traders, teachers, and 
missionaries, who have done this very thing, 
and I have seen them, after decades of ser- 
vice, rosy, hearty, and strong. The Scudders 
in India, Dr. Legge in China, and Dutchmen 
from Java are types of achievement. More 
than ten millions of white men and their de- 
scendants are to-day settled within the tropics, 

48 



Can White Men Live in Tropics? 

laying the foundations of new and possibly 
greater civilizations. With the reconciliation 
and fusion of Oriental and Occidental factors, 
and of the contributions from tropic and 
temperate man and nature, under the one 
recreative force of Christianity, who doubts 
but that " Time's noblest offspring " is yet 
to come ? 

Nor have Americans shown themselves one 
bit less able to live and work in the tropics 
than their British kinsmen. As soon as op- 
portunity offered, they, too, in Africa, Asia, 
South America, the East and the West In- 
dies, in Polynesia and Micronesia, !iave gone, 
by ones and twos, or in little groups, for 
trade, and to labor for man's good in the 
name of the Son of Man. It was in tropic 
and African waters that Matthew Perry and 
Andrew Hull Foote demonstrated that a ship 
could be made more sanitary than the average 
house. Human health on the American mer- 
chant marine and the African and Asiatic 
squadrons of the United States navy shows 
that climate is no bar to enterprise or hin- 
drance to endeavor. We have had for a 
half-century hundreds of American mission- 
4 49 



America in the East 

aries working in the regions where the sun's 
rays are vertical. In addition to their own 
fertility of resources, their measures for the 
prevention of disease and danger and the pro- 
motion of comfort, and the remedies which 
the tropics themselves provide, is their armor 
of consecration and patriotism on the right 
hand and on the left. It is the spirit of the 
nations in which the Bible is most unfettered 
that explains their indomitable power of 
achievement. When the mind is sustained, 
the body can bear more. 

It is not alone the resources of civilization 
which enable the Englishman and the English- 
woman to excel all others as empire-builders. 
Look at those streams of Scottish and English 
people who every year pass through Egypt 
to India and the distant East. Think what 
nation-makers they are ! Reflect on the moral 
courage that sustains mothers and fathers who 
give up, during eight or ten of the most in- 
teresting years of their life, their children born 
in the tropics, in order that these may be 
trained in a more bracing moral atmosphere 
and hardier climate, even in the old home in 
the northern seas, before coming back, as most 

50 




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O 

P:S 
O 
I 

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H 

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w 

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Pi 

Si 

w 

Oh 
W 
H 

O 



o 



Can White Men Live in Tropics? 

of them do, to earn the Queen's shilling, or 
the civil service stipend, or the missionary's 
pittance. Cannot Americans do what British 
folk have done ? 

We are far from accepting the notion that 
white men cannot live in the tropics. Mr. 
Kidd's dogmatism here seems to rest upon 
tradition rather than upon thorough knowl- 
edge of modern conditions and possibilities. 
My own observations and knowledge, with 
pretty wide acquaintance with men who have 
lived and worked continuously under a ver- 
tical sun, lead me to take an entirely different 
view of the problem. As matter of fact, the 
modern man can, by ordering aright his diet 
and habits, acclimatize himself, especially if 
he sustains his spirit with food convenient, 
and draws upon the resources from the tropics 
themselves which nature and science have put 
in his hands. Furthermore, British medical 
journals assert, with proofs, that neither in 
theory nor fact is there any sound foundation 
for Mr. Kidd's belief. 

"The West Indies, which used to be called 
the white man's grave, now rank among the 
best sanatoria. The death-rate of European 

51 



America in the East 

troops in the tropics, whic4i used to be from 
lOO to 129 per I5OOO5 is now as lov/ as 12 per 
ijOOO in India. In Trinidad and Barbadoes 
the sickness and mortalit}^ among European 
soldiers are actually less than at home. It is 
hardly reasonable to dispute any longer the 
possibility of tropical acclimatization. The 
question has, in fact, been settled by the sol- 
vitur amhulando argument. What has now 
to be done is to study the means and condi- 
tions which may lead us to a complete victory 
over the tropical microbes, which are the real 
enemies to be conquered," Happy both the 
fact and augury that, from a sub-tropical and 
once hermit country opened by American 
diplomacy, has come forth Dr. Kitasato, the 
Japanese bacteriologist, who discovered and 
isolated the microbe which causes the bubonic 
plague and the bacilli of tetanus and influ- 
enza. 



52 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE ANGLO-SAXONS JOIN HANDS 

APPY also is it that in the tropics the 
two great " Anglo-Saxon " or Anglo- 
Celtic peoples understand each other better, 
join hands, and work shoulder to shoulder. 
In all that relates to the European system of 
politics, in Old World affairs, the Americans 
and British do not pull well together in the 
same yoke. Flitherto their differences have 
been rather as family squabbles, because of 
questions which connected themselves with 
European policy. But out in the broad 
world at large, especially during some great 
crisis, or when contrast of civilizations 
emerges, as in 1898, they are one. Then the 
deeps of old differences are broken up. 
They see themselves as friends, in a silent 
alliance. 

Let lis specify how, and when, the Union 
Jack and Stars and Stripes have covered the 
same work. American commerce in the 

53- 



America in the East 

Orient was, in its initiation, modest enough. 
It began with carrying ginseng to China and 
ice and apples to India. But our ships were 
ever in danger. For centuries past, and 
until well into the experience of living men, 
piracy was the scourge of the Eastern seas. 
The Japanese of long ago have a gay record 
in this branch of industry, and so have the 
Portuguese, Malays, and mixed races. Es- 
pecially in our century, when the Chinese 
rascals — probably the worst in the world — 
could get small arms and cannon from Bel- 
gian, German, and English merchants, the 
whole southeastern coast of China swarmed 
with sea-robbers. Hong-Kong was the hot- 
bed of piracy and villany. Head men of 
pirate gangs resided there, and piratical junks 
anchored with impunity in the harbor. Many 
of these vessels sailed in companies of six or 
ten, each mounting a dozen guns and with 
crews of forty or fifty men. They were thus 
large enough and perfectly able to capture 
the finest merchant vessel afloat. Ostensibly^ 
they might be honest traders, which made 
them all the more dangerous. Indeed, in 
dull times, few Chinese junks could resist 

, „. 54 



The Anglo-Saxons Join Hands 

doinp- a little piratical business. Finally, the 
English-speaking nations addressed them- 
selves to the task of utterly abolishing piracy. 
Then Americans and British joined hands, 
knowing no envy, and destroyed the corsairs. 
In jeopardy of life, for the safety of the seas, 
they poured out their blood alike. There 
stands to-day in Hong-Kong one monument 
to the memory of American and British 
sailors slain in suppressing piracy, true mar- 
tyrs of civilization. Our British friends have 
taken up with the custom of Decoration Day, 
and it is a touching sight, at every annual 
recurrence, to see marines and sailors under 
the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes 
make one procession to decorate the graves 
of comrades who speak the same tongue. In 
Korea, Japan, China, Siam, India, or the 
islands of the sea, this is seen. 

Slavery was once dominant in the tropic 
regions. It is still " the heart disease of 
Africa," though the domain of its existence 
is being rapidly circumscribed. It has been 
killed on the waters by united Anglo-Saxon 
effort. In all the spheres of the white man's 
influence in Africa, it is lessened every year. 

55 



America in the East 

When the rails from Cairo to the Cape shall 
have been laid, it will not long survive. The 
story of American co-operation with Great 
Britain in improving the slave trade off the 
earth, and especially off the ocean, is a noble 
one. From the time when Matthew Perry 
located Monrovia, and with Foote helped to 
lay the foundation of Liberia, but more es- 
pecially after the Webster-Ashburton Treaty 
of 1842, our navy was busy in the tropical 
waters of Africa in capturing slave craft and 
in policing the seas for the destruction of 
pirates. In the Dark Continent, as in the 
West Indies, we joined with the British in 
good work for all humanity. 

In a word, the Anglo-Saxon has his foot- 
hold in the tropics. He has held it during 
three centuries, developing its resources, in- 
troducing civilization and good government, 
gradually modifying the most hoary of the 
native ancient institutions, developing com- 
munication, building railways, lighthouses, 
telegraphs, submarine cables, opening the 
Dark Continent to light and hope, anni- 
hilating slavery, increasing mutual comfort, 
and, in a word, obeying the divine com- 

56 



The Anglo-Saxons Join Hands 

mands, for the benefit of all nations and of 
the race. 

This being their record in the past, is it 
not probable that the inheritors of the same 
race, genius, law, language, literature, and 
religion will work, during the centuries to 
come, to keep open the doors of trade, to 
extend civilization, and to labor for the uplift- 
ing of humanity ? Surely the hand of Provi- 
dence beckons to a great work. 



57 




CHAPTER IX 

THE CHINESE EMPIRE 

ETTER fifty years of Europe than a 
cycle of Cathay/' wrote Alfred Ten- 
nyson in " Locksley Hall." The fifty years 
of Europe which this generation knows date 
from the revolutionary year of 1848. There 
has been reconstruction of the map, of gov- 
ernments, and of society. 

Yet scarcely less wonderful is the progress 
of China, Fifty years ago the only nations 
recognized in Tien-Hia, or All-under-Heaven, 
were "barbarian" and "vassal," represented 
in the Middle Kingdom as " bearers of trib- 
ute." Surrounded by inferior pupil-nations, 
and caring to know of none others, all the 
rest of the world was but as fringe and tassels 
to the imperial robe. It took years of diplo- 
matic protest before the character for " bar- 
barian " was expunged from treaty documents. 
China knew nothing of international law. The 
Emperor would not recognize as subjects any 

58 



The Chinese Empire 

of his people who had gone abroad. Here 
was a nation of agnostics, altogether too " re- 
ligious " or superstitious, and know-nothings 
in politics. 

Here has lain an inert mass of human 
society, a congeries of many tribes, fused by 
a hoary system into social uniformity, but, 
even " Within the Four Seas," speaking dia- 
lects which cannot be mutually understood 
by the common people of the different prov- 
inces. In point of numbers China excels all 
empires, having possibly 400,000,000 souls. 
Start a mixed procession of the human race 
past your door, and every fourth person would 
be Chinese. 

Geographically, the densest mass of man- 
kind known on earth inhabited one of the 
world's richest plains, through which flowed 
fertilizing rivers to the sea. Around this 
swarming hive, in lands adjoining, lived less 
favored peoples. Westward rose the vast 
plateau, dry and cold, called Tibet, the cradle- 
land of Asia's mighty rivers, with eight or 
ten milHons of souls. A series of -sandy 
plains called Mongolia, one-third as large as 
Europe, populated by about three milHons of 

59 



America in the East 

people, rolled away to the northwest. North- 
ward was Manchuria, out of which came the 
Tartars and the reigning dynasty. To-day 
^YQ or six million Manchius, who have, since 
A. D. 1644, enforced the wearing of the queue 
as token of loyalty to the Peking Emperor, 
govern all of China's hosts. Over these 
grassy plains nomads roamed, and they, with 
the scanty townspeople, now number fewer 
than two millions. 

Southward was Indo-China, from Tong- 
king to Cambodia, with an area as large as 
Texas, in which dwelt from twenty to thirty- 
five millions. To the southwest were Burmah 
and Siam, partially under Chinese influence. 
There were a fev/ Chinese in the Philippines. 
and Malay archipelago, but none as yet in 
America. 

The Chinese name of the Loo-Choo Islands 
is Hanging Tassels — -pendant on the fringe 
of China's robe. .Formosa was claimed as 
part of Chinese territory, or was at least in 
vassalage. 

Over on the right was " The Little Sister 
of China." " The Outpost State," Korea, 
with its eight or ten millions of people, hang- 

60 



Tlie Chinese Empire 

ing down like the dangerous appendix vermis 
formis of the human economy, often caused 
trouble. Over out in the sea was Dai Nippon, 
supposed to be a member of the Chinese sys- 
tem, yet erratic and an unknown quantity. 

What held this great political system to- 
gether was a very ancient body of tradition. 
Its various applications to government, edu- 
cation, family and communal life, seemed like 
the veins, arteries, bones, and lungs of a body, 
necessary to its vitality. One text quoted 
from the classics has more than once stopped 
the building of a chimney, factory, or even 
weather-vane. Chinese education, social and 
ethical, was the cement which held these 
various nations and peoples together. It 
also furnished the solvent in which all hostile 
elements or foreign bodies were dissolved, or 
rather had been dissolved. For to the out- 
side observer, to whom the Chinese all look 
alike, and who does not keenly discriminate, 
China seemed as fixed in its forms as a min- 
eral mass. 

The Chinese Empire is threatened with 
disintegration. The heavings of rebellion, 
the mutterings of intellectual storm, the 

6i 



demands and determinations of reformers, 
forbode a change, which shall be not me- 
chanical merely, but, as it were, chemical, as 
though there v/as to be transformation. In 
Chinese fairy lore, Wang Chih, the Rip Van 
Winkle who entered , the cave where the im- 
mortals of the mountains were playing chess, 
received a soporific in shape like a date-stone, 
which made him oblivious to hunger, thirst, 
and time. That was China, for centuries hi- 
bernating in semi-slumber. Now the date- 
stone seems to have fallen out of the mouth. 
The external and phenomenal changes are 
startling even the men who so long dwelt in 
the intellectual cave. Telegraphs are making 
nerves. Steamships ply along the coasts and 
on all the navigable waterways. American 
machinists, engineers, and ship-builders, with 
the type of steamicrs familiar in our rivers, 
have powerfully stimulated China's immense 
inland traffic and commerce. Railways are 
beginning to knit the country together. Fac- 
tories, well equipped with modern steam 
machinery, are starting up. Mines of ore 
are operated by modern methods, and coal 
and oil are brought to the surface and refined 

62 



The Chinese Empire 

In Western ways. Old " cash," that weighs 
seven pounds to a dollar's worth, is giving 
way to coinage. The printing-press is at 
work. Mathematical and scientific books 
are in demand. Nearly a million copies of 
the Bible, in whole or in portions, are sold 
annually, and even more in number are the 
tracts and booklets. The last five years seem 
to have begun an industrial revolution. 

There are differing planes of culture and 
grades of ability and civilization even in the 
Eighteen Provinces, as well as in the out- 
lying countries. Chinese history shows that 
nearly all natives of renown have come from 
the main central region of the Yellow and 
Yang-tse Rivers. This is still the centre of 
Chinese civilization. Out of it have sprung 
most of the leaders of the past. From it will 
doubtless arise those who are to be eminent 
in the making of the new and better China 
which we hope is coming. In North China, 
the majority of the people are ignorant and 
poor, and are not given to progress and en- 
lightenment. In the capital, there is apparent 
exception, because the able men come from 
elsewhere. "All roads lead to Peking." 



America in the East 

The people of southern China are less 
attractive in physique than their northern 
fellow-countrymen, but are not much more 
progressive. The Chinese seen in America 
come wholly from this quarter, and, indeed, 
almost exclusively from certain districts around 
Canton, in area not larger than Vermont. 
In central China, where natural resources are 
more abundant and communications more 
easy, we find also more men of ability, with 
open-mindedness, and with some conception 
of what national progress means. 



64 



CHAPTER X 

CAUSES OF CHINESE DECAY 

WHY has a people so favored by nature 
remained stationary, like a stone in 
a moist place, gathering the moss of ages ? 
China is like a great boneless giant, a masto- 
don without nerves. Low is the type of life 
where the sensory and motor nerves respond 
so languidly to danger at the extremities. 
Why has the central Flowery Land remained 
so many centuries apparently in a state of 
arrested development? The vagueness of 
national feeling, the general absence of patri- 
otism, the lack of mental initiative, the gen- 
eral sluggishness of the national mind, spring, 
we think, from Chinese vagueness of thought 
in regard to this universe and the Maker of 
it. Where pantheism reigns, there can be 
little worthy of the name of history, no defi- 
nite self-consciousness, little sense of national 
unity. 

5 6s 



The facts are that the Chinese have been 
isolated from the world by natural barriers. 
On three sides, north, west, and south, are 
great deserts which in early days could not 
be traversed, or mountain ranges that were 
almost unsurmountable, while on the eastern 
front lies the great ocean, once a dead wall of 
inclusion. Yet, as if nature had reared no 
sufficient barriers, the Chinese built more and 
greater. The first is a brick frontier which 
in its dimensions has a length like that from 
Sandy Hook to Kansas. Over two thousand 
years old, the Great Wall winds like a colos- 
sal snake over mountains and valleys. Yet 
this monument of separation is only a symbol 
of more efficient barriers to intercourse which 
have been reared in the mind. In the first 
place, the women, half of Chinese humanity, 
are bound at both extremities, in head and 
feet. The Sons of Han never encouraged 
the education of the mothers of their children, 
and they have literally cramped their feet, 
dooming millions of little girls through many 
generations to have their toes crushed and 
their extremities, so beautiful as God made 
them, compressed into shapeless hoofs. In 

66 



Causes of Chinese Decay 

the struggle for life, in famine or disease, 
the daughter is foredoomed to death. 

They have both starved and fettered the 
mind, and prevented its growth. Confucius, 
whose boast was that he invented nothing, 
followed his ancestors in gazing with rever- 
ence upon the past, but with fear and dread 
upon the future. He went even further in 
making a nation of agnostics. The forefathers 
at the altars of heaven and earth worshipped 
God. Confucius laid down the precept, 
" Honor the gods, but keep them far from 
you." He taught morality as etiquette only, 
degraded religion to a merely ethical system, 
and thus cut the taproot of all moral growth, 
by preventing aspiration. The element of 
; religious progress being eliminated, the mind 
'■ was fettered like their own botanical curi- 
osities. These, stinted of air, moisture, soil, 
; and with roots cut, attain that limited growth 
which is deemed so elegant. The great mass 
of Chinese humanity, without vision or in- 
quiry, making no criticism of the past or 
showing any desire to change, indeed looking 
upon innovation as crime, have remained at a 
dead level. A missionary once informed me 

67 



America in the East 

that, in sixteen years of teaching many docile 
and estimable pupils, he could recall no in- 
stance of any one of them coming to ask him 
what this or that Scripture meant, or any 
instance of critical inquiry. 

Nevertheless, we must remember that 
China has had political development and 
variety. There has been evolution from pa- 
triarchal to regal government, then feudalism, 
and finally centralization, with frequently 
varying balances of power between sovereign 
and people, between imperialism and democ- 
racy. Indeed, China, locally, is the freest 
country in Asia. The fact that Taoism and 
Buddhism have taken such root and flour- 
ished so widely, is proof that mental initiative 
is not wholly lost, and that the Chinese have 
capacity to change, and even to adopt Chris- 
tianity. 

Furthermore, some things on which Occi- 
dental civilization sets great store, and which 
seem almost necessary to its being, are 
of distinctly Oriental origin, and for many 
centuries the Chinese had them before they 
were known elsewhere. These were tea, silk, 
paper, jade, porcelain, clocks, gunpowder, 

6S 



Causes of Chinese Decay 

and much of the knowledge which^ through 
alchemy, has developed into chemistry. It 
is probable that the Egyptians, like the 
Greeks and Romans, and it is certain that 
the medissval Arabs, borrowed much from 
China. It is no longer a matter of opinion, 
but of fact, that printing, by means of mov- 
able types, as well as by blocks and other 
stereotyped forms, was known in Korea cen- 
turies before it was practised in Europe, the 
probabilities being; that the art was brought 
mto Europe by the Mongols, The magnetic 
needle was for centuries used as a guide for 
land travellers, but in a. d. 1122 the record 
was made of a Chinese fleet from Ningpo to 
Korea being guided by the magnetic needle. 
It is entirely true that upon the basis of the 
Chinese discoveries and applications Western 
men have advanced mightily. 

For sixteen centuries or more the Chinese 
have had competitive literary examination for 
appointment to the civil service, yet, after 
ages of literary daUiance and ponderous eru- 
dition, the average learned Chinaman is the 
most ignorant man of letters known on earth. 
The Chinese, more than any other people, 

69 



America in the East 

have suffered from routine, age-hardened con- 
ceit, ignorance which seems invulnerable, and 
an apparently hopeless lack of originality. 
Even the progress of Christian nations is, in 
the mandarin's eyes, degeneration, degradation. 

It is no wonder, then, that when the forlorn 
hope of American teachers of the. Gospel 
first entered China, merchants and sailors 
asked them incredulously whether they could 
move China. They answered that they could 
not, but that God could. 

What the Chinese need is life, vision. It 
is because their sages and mandarins say, 
"We see,'* while yet they are blind, that 
they cannot even now realize their danger. 
The people have no hope, and are liable 
to be conquered by the foreigner and lose 
their country. China needs a new nervous 
system. 



70 



CHAPTER XI 

OUR PIONEER COUNTRYMEN IN CHINA 

IT was a day of very small things that saw 
the beginnings of x\merican influence upon 
Ta Tsing. Our flag was first carried to China 
by Major Gray, of the United States First 
Artillery^ who was supercargo of the American 
ship " Empress/' which, loaded with ginseng, 
sailed on Washington's birthday, 1784, for 
Canton. There the Stars and Stripes were 
raised, and the men from " the Country of 
the Flowery Flag " began to be known. The 
first American firms v/ere those of Milner & 
Bull, and later of Talbot, Olyphant, & Co. 

It was through a New Yorker, Mr. Oly- 
phant, a member of the Bleecker Street Pres- 
byterian Church, and by his invitation, that 
the famous English missionary to China, 
Robert Morrison, the first Protestant mis- 
sionary to that country, was able to reach 
Canton. His name, ever fragrant and magic- 
like, is an honor to all English-speaking 

71 



America in the East 

nationSj and his manuscripts are to-day rev- 
erently treasured under glass in Hong-Kong. 
He arrived in the year 1807, and was given 
quarters with Messrs. Milner & Bull;, of Nev/ 
York. The East India Company was hostile 
to the presence of a missionary, but it was 
through Mr. Olyphant's influence that the 
London Missionary Society sent him out, 
and so manifest were his talents that in 1 808 
the Company employed him as translator. 
With a single teacher, who was in constant 
terror of being discovered and put to death, 
he worked steadily for years in a godown or 
storehouse. This hero of learning and con- 
secration, almost unaided, translated the Bible 
into the most difficult language of the world. 
In the opinion of all learned men in Europe, 
this had been deemed utterly beyond the 
power of any single person. Through his 
exertions, with those of his colleagues, from 
1 8 10 to 1836, 7515763 copies of works, re- 
ligious and scientific, consisting of 800,000,000 
pages, were printed at Canton and other 
ports in the Far East, of which there were 
2,075 complete Chinese Bibles, 9,970 New 
Testaments, and 3 1,000 separate portions of 

72 



Our Countrymen in China 

Scripture. To translate the Bible into Chinese 
meant the building of a railway through the 
Chinese intellect 

Talbot, Olyphant, & Co. formed but one 
of those princely American " hongs " or mer- 
chant houses before submarine-cable days, so 
liberal in spirit and so generous in patronage 
of good to China. This same firm invited 
out and brought on one of their ships Dr. 
David Abeel, from New York. It was the 
church of which Mr. Olyphant was a member 
that sent out the printing-press and type of 
which Mr, S. Wells Williams took charge. 
The first Christian school in China, established 
at Canton and named after Morrison, was 
started in 1838 by the Rev. S. R. Brown, a 
graduate of Yale College and son of the 
author of the well-known hymn, ^' I love to 
steal awhile away, from every cumbering care." 
Dr. Brown trained many Chinese young men, 
including Yung Wing, who afterwards was 
influential in having over a hundred Chinese 
young men brought to the United States for 
education, besides being a power in bringing 
in the new and better China that is to be. 

The free education, both Christian and 

73 



America in the East 

secular, which Americans have given the 
Chinese, through the boarding and day schools 
for boys and girls, medical and technical 
schools, through academies and colleges, forms 
a brilliant story. The Canton school was con- 
tinued by Dr. A. P. Happer, educator and 
translator, who lived until 1894, having com- 
piled and put into the vernacular scores of 
text-books, his monument being the Christian 
College in Canton. 

To mention even a few illustrious examples 
of ability, patient industry, and success is to 
do injustice to other noble men and women 
— unless this paper is taken as only a hint or 
meagre sketcho Dr. W. A. P. Martin, of Indi- 
ana, who came to Ning-po in 1850, has spent 
most of his time as an educator. He was 
called by the Government in 1869 to start 
and conduct the Tung-wen, a college organ- 
ized in Peking to train young men for the 
public service, especially as agents of inter- 
national intercourse. Under nine foreign 
professors and four native teachers, the one 
hundred and twentv students are of two sorts, 
those who begin with languages and those 
who begin with the sciences. Dr. Martin's 

74 



Our Countrymen in China 

works, potent for the making of a new China 
and done into Chinese, are now circulating 
wherever Chinese is read. His best piece 
of translation — Wheaton's " International 
Law" — has exercised a mighty influence 
upon the two empires whose rulers are Sons 
of Heaven, dwelling in Peking and Tokio. 
Like Verbeck, of Japan, this American has 
been an instructor of statesmen. In the pro- 
gramme of reforms set forth by the Emperor 
recently, which I believe will yet be carried 
out. Dr. Martin has been authorized to or- 
ganize a Chinese University, which is likely 
to change the key of national education and 
intellect. 

Not less brilliant as a story, nor less 
wonderful for good, is the modern medical 
history of China, as directed by American 
physicians. Dr. Peter Parker, a Yale graduate 
and Massachusetts man, while on his way to 
China in 1834 to establish a hospital, was 
influential in having organized the Edinburgh 
Medical Missionary Society, which has done 
such good to the souls and bodies of men in 
China and Japan. Besides relieving thou- 
sands of suflFerers, through medicine and sur- 

75 



America in die East 

gery, during many years of toil, and in training 
hundreds of Chinese students to be physicians. 
Dr. Parker was but one pioneer of a great 
host from America and Europe. These have 
estabhshed, and given years of drudgery in, 
the sixty-one hospitals and forty-three dis- 
pensaries which were in China in 1890, and 
are now more numerous, and in which nearly 
four hundred thousand patients are treated 
annually. 

As early as February 6, 1 8 1 2, Rvc mission- 
aries were ordained at Salem, Massachusetts, to 
teach and preach in eastern Asia. From the 
very first, American missionaries have been 
gifted with the best of all gifts, that of sancti- 
fied common sense. Instead of being freaks 
and cranks, they have proved themselves 
men of ability and clear vision. Findinp- that 
missionary work does not always consist in 
doing exactly what one came expecting to do, 
they immediately put hand and mind to what 
was set before them. Years before Christ- 
ianity was tolerated by treaty, our missionaries 
had settled in the Straits Settlements and 
learned the Chinese languagCj so that, when 
able to enter in, they were already equipped 

76 




D 



H 
C/2 



J 

O 

o 

U 

K 
O 



Our Countrvmen in 






for the work, carrying also Dr. Robert Mor- 
rison's translation of the Bible into Chinese. 
When, in 1842, the five ports were opened, 
they were reinforced from home, made better 
versions of the Bible, established schools, 
opened dispensaries, and printed books. Mr. 
David Abeel, of the Reformed Church, 
founded, while on a visit to England, the 
Society for Promoting the Female Education 
of the East. Besides sending scores of wo- 
men to teach their sisters of India and China, 
this Society became the prolific parent of 
the numerous Women's Missionary Socie- 
ties, both denominational and union, which 
have done so much good all over the world. 
Another pioneer was Lieutenant M. S. Cul- 
bertson, U. S. A., classmate at West Point 
with Sherman, Beauregard, and Halleck, who 
resigned his commission to serve the Great 
Captain in China, and to help put the Bible 
into the tongue of millions. 

The Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church, 
in New York City, sent to the newly estab- 
lished mission at Canton a printing-press 
to print books to aid in spreading the Gospel. 
William Williams, the father, wrote to his 

77 



America in the East 

son, S. Wells Williams, who had fixed his 
mind upon the career of a botanist, to go out 
and take charge of this press. The botanist 
became a printer. In China, with quick eye 
and wonderful inventive power, he studied 
the Chinese system of writing to find which 
of the 80,000 or more characters could be 
best used for printing. From that small 
beginning, and through the work of Mr. 
Gamble at Shanghai, have developed giant 
enterprises for the production and distribution 
of printed matter. Forty missionary societies 
are now at work in China, and all make 
more or less use of tract, book, and leaflet 
among a people who almost worship letters. 
The American Board press years ago had 
issued over 30,000,000 pages. The Metho- 
dist press at Fu-chau sends out over a mil- 
lion pages annually. The Presbyterian press 
of Shanghai, with its type-foundry, bindery, 
book depository, does printing in eight lan- 
guages. In the year 1889, 6,178,806 pages 
were sent forth. Here the great manuscript 
dictionaries, grammars, original works and 
translations into the Chinese dialects, and into 
Japanese, Korean, Manchiu, and Malay, which 

78 



Our Countrymen in China 

are such a credit to American scholarship, 
have been condensed into light and portable 
volumes. Billions of pages of Gospel truth, 
of scientific information, and of popular knowl- 
edge on most every conceivable department 
of human progress have thus been scattered 
broadcast all over China. 

Dr. Elijah Coleman Bridgman, the first 
American missionary sent directly from the 
United States to China, began in May, 1832, 
to publish a magazine, the " Chinese Reposi- 
tory," relating to the people and countries of 
the Far East, in order that the whole English- 
speaking world as well as educated Euro- 
peans everywhere might learn to know more 
about yellow and brown humanity. He was 
able to do this because, besides the Chinese 
type belonging to the East Indian Company, 
he had the font of type brought out from New 
York. Mr. S. Wells Williams, the educated 
pnnter in charge, became also a contributor, 
helping with hand and head to issue that 
world-renowned periodical, which for twenty 
years informed the world, as it had never 
been informed before, about the oldest of 
empires. Besides a Hbrary of solid volumes, 

79 



America in the East 

which have helped to bridge the gulf between 
alien and native. Dr. Williams wrote " The 
Middle Kingdom/' the best book on China, 
and his Tonic and Syllabic Dictionaries. 
The publication of each of the three was a 
literary event. Thus were opened those 
mighty quarries in which book-makers, tour- 
ists, writers on China, and speakers of the 
language have so industriously delved, so that 
out of their bowels have come the materials 
for a mighty superstructure of literature. 
After the " Repository " ceased, the " Chinese 
Recorder " was founded by Dr. L. N. Wheeler, 
and is still published. Neither Williams nor 
Martin has ever trumpeted forth the fact of 
imperial favor, audiences with the Emperor, 
or the possession of mandarin's buttons. In 
1848 John V. N. Talmage (brother of the 
well-known living preacher in Washington) 
reached Amoy (whence came the tea to 
Boston in 1773), where the first Church for 
native Christians using an open Bible was 
erected in China. There were two believers 
in the Amoy region when Talmage arrived. 
There are now scores of churches. The 
story of this missionary is typical of others. 

80 



Our Countrymen in China 

The forty or fifty thousand enrolled Protest- 
ant church members now in China imply a 
Christian community of over 150,000, and 
with the Catholics of over a quarter of a 
million. Of missionary progress an expert 
critic on the ground wrote in 1888 : 

" If Christian missions [in China] advance 
in the next thirty-five years in the same ratio 
as in the past thirty-five years, there will be, 
at the end of that time, twenty-six millions of 
commiunicants and a Christian community 
of one hundred million people " — one-fourth 
ofthe Chinese nation. 



81 



CHAPTER XII 

AMERICAN LEAVEN IN THE CHINESE MASS 

THE printed page has been a great 
leavening force, permeating and lifting 
up the Chinese mass. To-day, besides the 
foreign newspapers at the treaty portSj mostly 
in English, there are twelve or fifteen Chris- 
tian journals printed in Chinese, and the 
vernacular daily press in the cities. The first 
newspapers and periodicals were missionary 
organs. Then came secular papers, all started 
with foreign capital, but soon purchased by 
natives and coming under their control. 
Typesetters, printers, and editors are Chi- 
nese. There are newspapers for educated 
families, cheap sensational weeklies, advertis- 
ing sheets, and even comic papers. Shanghai 
has already five Chinese newspapers. 

The dense ignorance of the masses has also 
been pierced by the societies like that for the 
Diffusion of Christian and General Knowl- 
edge, which has had such a surprising expan- 

82 



American Leaven 

sion since the Chino- Japanese war. In one 
year, from November i, 1896, a total of 199,- 
200 copies of books, containing 12,1675900 
leaves or double pages, were issued. Dr. 
Young J. Allen, an American missionary, the 
chief author and translator, has devoted his 
life to this work, which seemed at first like 
casting good bread upon ungrateful waters. 
But he has lived to see what he cast forth 
return after many days. The chief centres 
of distribution are in the examination halls, 
where students assemble (in Nanking even to 
the number of twenty-four thousand, and now 
under the electric light). It is from among 
such Chinese students, enlightened by Occi- 
dental knowledge, translations, and by truth 
supplied by foreigners, that reformers like 
Kang (now the exile in Tokio), who brought 
the new ideas even to the Emperor, have 
come. 

It is impossible to tell in detail the story of 
Christian missions, or the wonderful results 
accomplished. To judge of these latter by 
statistics of converts is simply absurd. As 
some of the grandest triumphs in electricity 
are those of induction, so the Protestant mis- 

^3 



America in the East 

sionaries of China have, besides their churches, 
preaching stations, hospitals, dispensaries, 
schools, colleges, and printing-presses, given 
the Chinese object-lessons and stimulated 
them to thought, and^ we might almost say, 
created for them a public opinion. Of course 
these men who turn the Chinese vv^orld upside 
down are not liked, for innovation in the eyes 
of the normal Confucian is sin. Why should 
the mandarins or the orthodox, whose interests 
are all in keeping things as they are, whose 
only reverence is for what is past, who wish 
to keep China governed from the graveyard, 
approve or say anything in favor of Christian 
missionaries ? 

Furthermore, we must never forget the 
great contrast of ideals and purposes of Pro- 
testant and Catholic missionaries. The Roman 
Catholic, noble, self-denying, self-effacing, will- 
ing martyr as he often is, forms a commun- 
ity, holds his converts to the Church, but 
does not in any very appreciable way touch 
the art, literature, traditions, or ideals of the 
people. If his pupils are good Catholics, 
they may still plod on in their old ruts. But 
the Protestant missionary comes to reform 

84 



American Leaven 

society. He brings leaven, he makes up* 
heaval, he influences art, literature, tradition, 
ideals. He gives a new view and compels 
change, and change for the better. 

Consequently, there is to-day a "young 
China." There are Chinese who no longer 
consider that the graveyard ought to rule, or 
that the thoughts of dead men may not be 
challenged. It is the pupils of the mission- 
aries who, directly or indirectly, have had the 
courage to pierce the official hedge and bring 
even to the Emperor the truth. It is they who 
have told the Son of Heaven that unless he 
and his people awake to the truth of the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man, the nation is doomed, and that the very 
attempt to preserve the institutions which 
have caused China's retrogression and decay 
will hasten her downfall. 

In diplomacy, the American leaven has been 
powerful in the Chinese mass. The first 
Minister, the Hon. Caleb Cushing, a man of 
ability, tact, and power, arrived in the frigate 
"Brandywine." With our missionaries as sec- 
retaries and interpreters, he concluded the 
treaty of Wanghia, July 3, 1844, which was 

35 



America in the East 

so clear and detailed that until i860 it was 
the leading authority in settling disputes be- 
tween the Chinese Government and foreigners. 
William B. Reed came to China in the " Min- 
nesota/' but refused to make the ko-tow, or 
nine protestations, and left the country. The 
first instance in which the name and title of 
a foreign functionary were respectfully men- 
tioned was when the American Minister 
John E. Ward was reported, in the Peking 
"Gazette," in July, 1869, to have come to the 
imperial capital. He, too, refused to ko-tow; 
but the result of the diplomacy of 1858, which 
dragged the bat-like mandarins out of their 
stupid ignorance and childish desires for isola- 
tion, was the toleration of Christianity, diplo- 
matic residence in Peking, and freedom to 
travel through the country. Through these 
three avenues of welfare and progress, hereto- 
fore closed, as S. Wells Williams says, China 
has already " made more real advances than 
ever before in her history." 

Peking once accessible, our country has had 
a line of able representatives, led by Anson 
Burlingame. In 1868 he came to America 
and Europe with the Chinese Embassy. De- 

B>6 



American Leaven 

spite the tart criticisms of men too eager to 
make money, Burlingame did good, and 
China's first attempt to show friendliness was 
a sincere one. Then American influence in 
China was at the flood-tide, for a new order 
of things was beginning and friendly advice 
was welcomed. These were the days when 
we were begging the Chinese to come over 
and help us in developing our country. We 
had not yet begun to violate our own treaties, 
eat our own words, and kick out the guests 
we had once invited. Not having any definite 
foreign policy. Republican or Democratic, 
inspired now by scholars and again by the 
sand-lot orators, the outrageous treaty of 
1894, the eternal disgrace of the American 
Nation, was negotiated, and American pres- 
tige fell. Nevertheless, it rose again under 
James Ross Brown, the versatile engineer; 
Mr. Low, the all-round high-average Gov- 
ernor of California; the writer and scholar 
Avery, the practical and thoroughly trained 
and experienced Seward (nephew of America's 
great expansionist), the university president 
Angell, the well-informed journalist John 
Russell Young, and last, though farthest 

87 



America in the East 

from the leasts Denby, who, to the honor of 
our Government, actually served three terms. 
When the war-storm of 1894 broke out, he 
had the profound confidence both of China 
and Japan. 

Some day we shall see the folly of sending 
out to Oriental nations raw diplomatists igno- 
rant of the language and people among whom 
they live. Excellent, however, as has been 
the line of diplomatists of the United States 
in Peking, how, with such secretaries, scholars, 
men of affairs, masters of the Chinese lan- 
guage, and missionaries as S. Wells Williams, 
W. A. P. Martin, and Chester Holcombe in 
Peking, could it have been hard for even an 
average man to be anything else timn a pretty 
good envoy ? The fruitful visit of General 
Grant — "the typical American citizen" — 
and the labors of the Hon. John W. Foster 
in China in 1895, though unofficial, belong to 
this fair page of American influence in the 
Far East. 

It was an American, General Ward, who 
first revealed to the world the military possi- 
bilities of the Chinese people. It had come 
to be almost a settled maxim with Europeans, 

S8 



American Leaven 

down to the year 1860, that the Chinese had 
no military capacity whatever, that they were 
not only timid and cowardly, but could not 
be organized for war. The fact that a little 
army of Anglo-French allies had penetrated 
to the capital and destroyed the Imperial 
summer palace seemed to demonstrate that 
neither Tartar nor Chinaman could be called 
a soldier, in the Western sense of the word. 
Then it was that General Frederick G. Ward, 
of Salem, Massachusetts, in the time of the 
great Tai-ping rebellion, drilled a company of 
ordinary natives until they became invincible 
heroes. After Ward's death, " Chinese " 
Gordon, whose murder at Khartoum has 
just been avenged by Kitchener, commanded 
this Ever-Conquering Legion and enlarged 
it, winning his great fame, putting down the 
rebellion that had caused the death of mill- 
ions of Chinamen, with incredible devastation 
of land and cities. Thus building where an 
American had laid the foundation, Li Hung 
Chang was enabled, with German aid, to put 
into the field the only Chinese soldiery which 
could stand for an hour in presence of the 
Japanese army of 1874. When this one 

89 



America in the East 

army corps was destroyed, China had to 
make peace, though the so-called Chino- 
Japanese war of 1894-95 was in no sense 
a war between two countries, but only be- 
tween Japan and three or four Chinese 
provinces. 

In a word, it may be within bounds to say 
that the American diplomatists, missionaries, 
teachers, physicians, engineers, and men of 
science have trained up the majority of the 
men of " New China," — that is, the only 
population which can be permanently relied 
on for the building of a new and regenerate 
State. 

" Fifty years of Europe " may indeed be 
better than a " cycle of Cathay." Still, it 
must be remembered that a Chinese cycle 
is exactly sixty years long, and the year, 
1899, is the 36th of the 76th cycle, since 
the first began 2637 b. c. Although Mr. 
Tennyson may have meant some indefinite 
period, yet to the student of China the words 
have less force than formerly, for old China 
is becoming new, and " through the shadow 
of the globe " is ever sweeping " into a 
younger day." Years ago Dr. S. Wells 

90 



American Leaven 

Williams wrote his faith and prophecy, or, 
at least, hope, that the regeneration of China 
would be " accomplished like the operation 
of leaven in meal, without shivering the 
vessel." 



9A 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE OLD JAPAN OF HERMIT DAYS 

IT is but half '^ a cycle of Cathay," or 
exactly thirty years, since Mutsuhito, 
the one hundred and twenty-third Mikado 
of Japan, began his reign and the era of 
Meiji or enlightened civilization. Within 
that time the hermit nation has taken a 
place among the world-powers. 

Once a sealed country, like the closed cave 
of Arabian story, the American Perry found 
the talismanic " Open Sesame." Our AH 
Baba made the portals unfold. Now the 
whole world is surprised at the wonders 
revealed. 

No one can accuse the latest delineators 
of Japan of a lack of appreciation. On the 
contrary, in their lush rhetoric and rank flat- 
tery, which shows ominous signs of self- 
deception, or of ultra-subjectiveness, rather 
than perception of truth or adherence to 
facts, there is danger of reaction. Some day 

92 




o 

5 
o 

H 

o 
"p 

K 
U 

< 
o 

< 
O 
M 
OS 
O 

;z; 

o 
o 

w 
> 



The Old Japan of Hermit Days 

the Japanese may be as much underrated 
and scouted as they are now overpraised by 
some. It is very certain that, whether in- 
tending it or not, the average newspaper 
correspondent and hasty tourist, wishing to 
please both the Japanese themselves (who 
love "sugar and superlatives'*) and the 
Occidental admirers of "Japonism," give 
what, when analyzed, are caricatures of truth. 
They ignore both the men and the forces 
that have made the new Japan. Some of 
these literary "impressionists" seem to be 
so Japanese-mad in their rhapsodies as to 
suggest Titania before Bottom. In the 
name of all our inheritance, let us not cast 
away perspective or take a Japanese poster 
as the gauge and measure of reality. 

To understand the present, we must look 
at the past. Let us have a little history. 

Official native chronology is a very recent 
product, manufactured in Tokio less than 
thirty years ago, and much more fashionable 
than justifiable. It is still dangerous in Japan 
to write in criticism of the origin of the 
Mikado's house. Full-grown natives who 
profess to be educated, gravely write that 

93 



America in the East 

"the first emperor ascended the throne b. c. 
660." Every scholar knows that the first 
thousand years or so of so-called Japanese 
" history '* is worthless. Not until about 
the fourth century does anything clear and 
firm emerge. The natives acknowledge that 
no writings or almanacs were in existence 
before the sixth century. Indeed, the more 
" official " a historical publication about the 
ancient ages is, the lower its value. 

Briefly sketching the national story, we 
see warring tribes and a population made 
up of Aino, Nigrito, Malay, Tartar, Korean, 
Chinese, and various continental elements 
struggling together before the dawn of written 
annals, in the eighth century. Out of these 
what is now the imperial house became para- 
mount. The ancient islanders had the rudi- 
ments of a religion, called Shinto, or the 
God-way, which no scholar, native or foreign, 
has yet demonstrated to be of indigenous 
origin. Buddhism, from Tibet and China 
through Korea, entered a. d. 552, has been 
the fertile mother of civilization and the 
perennial fountain of art, writing, literature, 
law, chronology, the popular religion, and 

94 



The Old Japan of Hermit Days 

manifold elements of culture. After the 
first rude feudalism, codes of law and the 
centralizing system of boards in the capital 
and governors in the provinces were borrowed 
from China. Then, through the rise of the 
military classes, came more elaborate feudal- 
ism and duarchy, — the Throne and the 
Camp — the Mikado in Kioto the source 
of honor, the Shogun or general with the 
sword and treasury in the east at Kamakura 
or Yedo. 

For about thirty- five years (1570 to 1605) 
three great men, Nogunaga, Hideyoshi, and 
lyeyasu appeared, and the Mikado governed 
through a military regent. During this 
period also came European traders and Port- 
uguese and Spanish missionaries. For a while 
the hermit nation was in contact with 
Europe, and a second great wave of influences 
from the West rolled in over the country. 
But, whether wholly because the mixture of 
political ambitions with the foreign religion 
was obnoxious, or, as is more probable, be- 
cause of insular feebleness and a political 
system which feared competition with and 
dangers from aliens, lyeyasu and his states- 

95 



America in the East 

men took alarm. The foreigners and their 
belongings were purged out by banishment, 
bloodshed, and cruelties unspeakable. Once 
more resuming the role of a hermit nation, 
Japan gradually elaborated a colossal system 
of violent exclusion and hermetical inclu- 
sion. One little loophole was kept open at 
Nagasaki. 

For two centuries or more, almost un- 
noticed and scarcely suspected, a constant 
infusion of leaven was poured by the Dutch- 
men through this vent-hole. Japan, in spite 
of those who think only of an absolutely 
sealed cave, a mummy chamber, or a Thorn- 
rose Castle, was in reality, not phenomenally 
nor in quantity, but invisibly and with tre- 
mendous potency, kept, as to her inquisitive 
scholars, in living contact with Europe. 
The majority of her educated men, however, 
remained steeped in the agnosticism of China 
and weltered in the ooze of pantheism, be- 
coming the most conceited, proud, and 
learnedly ignorant of all men. 

It is the Japan of Tokugawa days (1604- 
1868) with which our fathers and ourselves 
have been acquainted. Who were the Japan- 

96 



The Old Japan of Hermit Days 

ese of this time^ and what was their condi- 
tion? It is quite certain that it was only 
during this period that art, literature, and 
the bloom of the spirit in civilization became 
general in the islands. In the earlier cen- 
turies only the soldier class (the Samurai) 
and the court people enjoyed comforts or 
culture, while wealth was never great. 
Neither merchants, nor indeed any of the 
lower classes — that is, nine-tenths of the 
people — had any special rights which sword- 
wearers were bound fully to respect. The 
Japanese are a very polished people, but ages 
of force and the sword have been the teachers 
of politeness. 

Yet, even during this modern time, popu- 
lation having outgrown the capacity of the 
soil to furnish food, and the science of agri- 
culture and the arts of providing sustenance 
having come to the fullest possible develop- 
ment then known, the whole nation had to 
enter upon a course of pinching economy. 
The realities are set forth finely and with 
sympathy in Mr. Arthur Knapp's "Feudal 
and Modern Japan." Some of the ways 
and methods of this " Crusoe of nations " in 
7 97 



America in the East 

" cheese-paring " (though the Japanese never 
use cheese), as revealed in the local histories, 
seem as comical as they are pathetic. Popu- 
lation stood stationary for over a century. 
Infanticide was very common. No de- 
formed child had a chance to live. Often 
the girl babies fared as in China. Famines 
were more than occasional, often devastating 
considerable regions. Diseases that can be 
truly called immoral were rampant. It would 
be difficult to find many families that were 
absolutely free from the syphilitic taint. 
Rarely, if ever, could one look into an audi- 
ence of Japanese hearers, even twenty-five 
years ago, without finding large numbers 
pockmarked. Attendance upon the morning 
hour at the medical missionary's dispensary 
revealed ghastly pictures of disease such as 
few civilized countries could ever show. 

In the Tokugawa prefects or divisions the 
people were fairly well off, but in the others 
the beggars were numerous and hideously 
diseased, and the lepers clamorous. Gam- 
blers abounded. I have myself hired for 
my kagOy on a wintry day, porters who had 
gambled away every stitch of clothing. I had 

98 



The Old Japan of Hermit Days 

to buy rice and watch them while they ate it, 
lest they should stake and lose it. There 
was a class of people, the Eta, numbering, 
with the Hi-nin or not-human, probably a 
million or more, who were never reckoned in 
the census, and were treated as brutes. In 
each of the great municipalities, forming 
almost a city by themselves, was a large col- 
ony of women reserved for immoral use. 
Intolerance in religion, ruffianism under the 
name of honor, torture in the courts, and 
modes of punishment in the prison quite 
equal to the old Spanish Inquisition, formed 
the rule. The phallic cult was widespread. 
The most shockingly obscene books, pictures, 
and emblems were exposed for sale in the 
shops, made into confectionery and crockery, 
carried in parades and temple festivals. The 
decencies of life, as understood even in China 
and India, to say nothing of Christendom — 
and we have read what philosophers and 
aesthetically inclined gentlemen have said in 
explanation and defence — were not very well 
understood in Japan. Nor must hermits be 
judged by Occidental standards, or even by 
themselves of a.d. 1898. Indeed, we believe 

99 



America in the East 

it to be quite true that the reason why the 
average woman took her bath in the middle 
of the street was because it would attract less 
attention there than where she would have 
less room. 

It is all very different now. 



lOO 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE COMING OF THE AMERICANS 

EVEN during the last century our seamen 
were in the waters of Nippon, for dur- 
ing the extinction of the Dutch Repubhc by 
the French, Captain Stewart carried under the 
Stars and Stripes the annual vessel from 
Batavia to Nagasaki for trade. Captain 
Reuben Coffin, of Nantucket, landed on the 
Bonin Islands in 1824. Then followed 
whalehunters by the thousands. 

An American Christian gentleman first 
sent relief ships to the forbidden land in the 
sea, to take back Japanese waifs to their 
homes. In 1837 the American firm of C. 
W. King & Co. despatched the ship " Morri- 
son " into Yedo Bay. Fired upon and driven 
away, these good Samaritans encountered the 
same policy of repulsion with fire and shot 
at Kagoshima. This Mr. C. W. King, un- 
discouraged, wrote the first American book 
on Japan. In it he uttered a prophecy 



lOI 



America in the East 

which we are seeing fulfilled : " America is 
the hope of Asia beyond the Malay peninsula 
[as looked at in pre-Californian days eastward 
through Europe], and her noblest efforts 
shall find a becoming theatre there." 

Nevertheless, from these exiles in the sea 
the language of Nippon was learned, and 
interpreters like Dr. S. Wells Williams 
were trained, and Japanese young men were 
brought to the United States and educated. 
Among them were Kinzo, Manjiro, who was 
the interpreter (in the rear tent, unknown to 
Perry) in the first American treaty negotia- 
tions, and Heco, who started the first news- 
paper in Japan, the forerunner of the " Hiogo 
News," the " Tokio Times," and the " Tokio 
Independent," in which Messrs. Wainwright, 
E. H. House, and E. W. Eastlake have won 
journalistic honors, if not emolument. 

With continued insult and determination, 
official Japan repelled every attempt to open 
trade or to receive shipwrecked natives from 
afar or picked up on the sea. Meanwhile 
Americans were being cast ashore in Japan. 
The Yankee whalers, finding no game on the 
eastern side of their continent, were com- 

I02 



The Coming of the Americans 

pelled to weather Cape Horn and go north 
toward the polar seas, and from time to time 
their vessels foundered or went ashore. Not 
being always the best specimens of Christian 
civilization, our tars were treated roughly and 
sometimes with needless cruelty by the Jap- 
anese. It was from among these sailors that 
the first teacher of English in Japan came 
forth. Ronald McDonald was born at a 
settlement which was the true fruit of our 
commerce with China — Astoria, in Oregon. 

It soon became necessary to break down 
Japanese barbarism in refusing to receive 
their own people, and to demand justice and 
secure humanity in the treatment of Ameri- 
can sailors. With firmness, but without 
bloodshed. Commander Glynn, in 1848, with 
his little ten-gun brig, gave the insolent offi- 
cers at Nagasaki a lesson not speedily for- 
gotten. McDougal in the '' Wyoming " and 
Pearson in the '' Ta-Kiang " maintained the 
American record of valor — so confessedly 
medicinal and alterative to the Japanese mind 
— at Shimonoseki in 1863 ^^^ 1864. 

The Japanese themselves are now agitating 
the matter of erecting a great monument to 

103 



America in the East 

Commodore Perry. Having learned the 
temper of these Oriental insulars, this Rhode 
Islander actually excelled them in those elab- 
orate forms and etiquette which passed for 
morals and were made substitutes for char- 
acter in old Japan. Having himself selected 
his presents, he gave these people on the 
strand at Yokohama an object-lesson, show- 
ing them in actual operation the material 
forces of the West, — the railway, locomotive 
and train, the telegraph, electric batteries, 
ploughs, sewing-machines, and other tools 
especially the inventions of Americans. Corn- 
crackers and rice-hullers, after Colt's revolvers, 
were the most immediately popular, and 
some of the former are still in use in Yezo. 

Perry's successor, Townsend Harris, with- 
out a ship or a soldier, conquered by the 
simple might of truth, piercing the hoary 
system of politics built on lies, and ripping 
open the armor of laminated deception which 
the native diplomatists then gloried in. He 
was wrong in thinking the Japanese "the 
greatest liars on earth." Nevertheless, it will 
be a grand day to Japan when simple truth 
becomes the basis of ordinary business trans- 

104 




The Japanese Railway Engineer, Ishikawa. 



The Coming of the Americans 

actions, the staple of the newspapers, and 
the regulating principle in etiquette and forms 
of language. Japanese freely acknowledge 
that they never had a better friend than 
Townsend Harris. His honesty and friend- 
ship stand as a true type, as we hope, of the 
abiding friendship of the United States for 
the Mikadoes empire. 

At the first opportunity offered under the 
treaty, the American missionary-teacher en- 
tered into the country. Christianity had been 
for two centuries under ban. To the common 
people, the very word was a synonym with 
sorcery and plague. To the scholar and 
gentleman, it was the sign of all conceivable 
dangers. The multitude, driven like sheep 
under ofiicial compulsion, streamed through 
a wicket trampling on the engraved copper 
image of Jesus. Each gentleman had to 
swear, " on the true faith of a Samurai," that 
in his household was no believer in "the 
corrupt sect." The Buddhist priest was the 
sleuth-hound after heresy, the guardian be- 
tween the cradle and the grave against the 
feared and hated leaven which has since 1870 
remade and is remaking the nation. Open- 

105 



America in the East 

ing the dispensary. Dr. Hepburn began his 
healing and cleansing work with the crowds 
of filthy and diseased humanity. What grand 
names are those of Simmons, Berry, Whit- 
ney, Harwell, Taylor, Cutter, McCartee, and 
others in the medical annals of Japan ! Un- 
able to preach, the Christian missionary be- 
came a teacher, and founded the very first 
schools of science and languages. 

We make no pretence of even mentioning 
in this paper the work done by British, 
French, Germans, Dutch, and others. It is 
an Englishman that says, " New Japan is the 
creation of the foreign employee," and, " No 
less a feat than the reform of the entire edu- 
cational system was chiefly the work of a 
handful of Americans." 

Waiting patiently till prejudice had been 
removed and the way opened, the American 
missionaries began the teaching of Western 
learning and languages, putting into the hands 
of young men those keys that should open the 
treasures of literature, science, and civiliza- 
tion. At Nagasaki, Guido F. Verbeck organ- 
ized and taught, from 1859 to 1869, a 
government school in which many of the men 

T06 



The Coming of the Americans 

since eminent in reform and progressive gov- 
ernment were trained. After, in the Revolu- 
tion of 1868, the young men, expert with 
American rifles but inexperienced in foreign 
diplomacy and methods, had transported the 
Emperor and the national administration from 
Kioto to Tokio, they called Mr. Verbeck 
to be the head of the Imperial University, 
and their adviser in that education which 
they declared to be the basis of all progress. 

It was this quiet, forceful man who 
recommended, planned, and elaborated, not 
only the system of national education, but 
also the great embassy which went around 
the world, 1872-74, and which so turned the 
minds of the leading men of Japan toward 
Western ideas and methods of progress. 
Verbeck wrought out the details, and, when 
the list was complete, found, to his delighted 
surprise, that over one-half of the elect mem- 
bers of the embassy had been his pupils. 
When the Hon. David Murray was made 
Superintendent of Education, serving for 
several years, Mr. Verbeck remained the ad- 
viser of the Cabinet in national and local 
matters. It was he who influenced the Gov- 

107 



America in the East 

ernment to cease persecuting the Christians, 
and to end the savagery which disgraced the 
first years of the Restoration. For a time 
he was general factotum, doing the work 
which was afterwards distributed among ex- 
pert advisers, among whom were E. Peshine 
Smith, of Rochester, in the Foreign Office, 
and General George B. Williams, of Indiana, 
who superintended the raising of loans abroad 
and the carrying out of that scheme of in- 
ternal revenue which, like the banking laws 
and coinage of Japan, was borrowed from 
America ; Samuel M. Bryan founded the 
foreign postal system, personally securing 
signatures to postal treaties, first, with the 
United States and then with European Gov- 
ernments. 

Mr. Verbeck translated into the vernacular, 
for the Government the " Code Napoleon," 
Bluntschli's " Staatsrecht," and " The Thou- 
sand Legal Maxims,'' and for the people 
" The Book of Psalms " — probably the best 
piece of translation ever done into the verna- 
cular. Greatest of the aliens who wrought 
to build the New Japan was Guido Verbeck. 



io8 



CHAPTER XV 

THE MISSIONARY STORY 

OUR Other missionaries, notably S. R. 
Brown, the author of grammars and 
language books, trained some of the very first 
young statesmen of New Japan. Dr. J. C. 
Hepburn, besides healing tens of thousands of 
poor people, made the standard dictionary on 
which all others have since been based, and, with 
helpers, completed the Bible in Japanese. Dr. 
J. C. Berry, the father of prison reform in 
Japan, also originated and was prominent in 
the work, which was practically carried out 
by Miss Richards and especially Miss Tal- 
cott, of training nurses. In the war of 1894 
Japan had a superb hospital system, with 
nine hundred trained women nurses to draw 
upon, while China actually went to war with- 
out a hospital corps. 

Not least of all their multifarious work was 
the training of the natives in self-government 
and parliamentary procedure which hun- 

109 



America in the East 

dreds of American missionaries gave to 
thousands of Japanese young men, thus pre- 
paring the nation for representative institu- 
tions. The church meetings and ecclesiasti- 
cal conventions carried on by natives, under 
American oversigh formed a school of prac- 
tical civics also. It is, therefore, no wonder 
that in the Japanese Cabinet and house of 
Commons the number of Christian men and 
church officers is out of all proportion numer- 
ous as compared with men of other religions 
or of none. 

It was a Boston merchant, Alpheus Hardy, 
who educated Neesima, and American money 
that for the most part established the Do- 
shisha University in Kioto, with its halls of 
science and theology. American teachers by 
the hundreds, and university graduates as 
professors by the score, in the private and 
Government schools and the Imperial Uni- 
versity, have moulded the minds of young 
Japan. Fukuzawa, Japan's " grand old man '* 
and admirer of America, who will have no 
office, but directs a university and is " the 
intellectual father of one-half of the young 

men now in office," may almost be called a 

no 



The Missionary Story- 
pupil of the United States. The Normal 
School for men and women " has been the 
work of a Kentucky gentleman, M. M. Scott, 
A. M./' now of Honolulu. Musical education 
was introduced and established by Luther 
W. Mason, of Boston. The names of Cap- 
tain L. L. Janes, Professor Terry, Dr. J. 
C. Cutter, are but a few in the work of 
education. 

The Japanese woman, though far above 
the status of her sisters in China or India, 
had no career or vocation open to her beyond 
that in the house or farm. One-half of 
Japan was shut off from intellectual culture. 
The coming of missionaries, with homes and 
wives, gave an object-lesson which did indeed 
disturb the faultless and lifeless symmetry of 
old Japanese ideals. Yet they awoke also 
new hope and created new possibilities for 
the Japanese women. The names of Ameri- 
can Christian women — Hepburn, Pruyn, 
Crosby, Pearson, Straight, Bacon, Pierce, 
Buckley, Richards, Talcott, and others who 
have preached and lived the Christian doc- 
trine of the worth of woman, equally with the 
man the child of God, will not soon be for- 



III 



America in the East 

gotten. Even the most vitriolic critic and 
caricaturist of missionaries, writing of them 
as " patterns of social cleanliness and de- 
corum," has shown their mighty influence in 
purifying the Japanese home. 

All over the Empire to-day the brighter, 
the more thoughtful, the more purposeful 
faces of Japanese women are as different 
from the creations of Sir Edwin Arnold or 
Pierre Loti as can be imagined. The new 
woman in Japan, besides making a new kind 
of home, is creating a- sentiment against 
polygamy and legalized prostitution. She is 
forward in reform, is helping to create a 
Christian literature, and in manifold ways is 
bringing in that better day which is steadily 
coming. The best book on Japanese girls 
and women was written by an American 
lady, Alice M. Bacon. Of the twelve best 
books on Japan by writers of all nations, as 
listed by the English Professor, B. H. Cham- 
berlain, all except one in the first half-dozen 
are by Americans. 

Even, in the almost periodical reactions, 
the outbursts of Chauvinism, the cry of 
"Japan for the Japanese," the positive bla- 

112 



The Missionary Story 

tancy and maudlin sentimentalism of official 
emissaries who teach with authority the unique 
derivation of the Japanese direct from " the 
gods," do not and cannot conceal the reality 
of the good work done by the Americans. 
Christianity has galvanized moribund Buddh- 
ism into life, and compelled the priests to 
work for the good of the people. Gorged 
with Government patronage, accumulated 
wealth, and unchallenged power. Buddhism 
had ceased to grow. Its priests were sensual 
and selfish, even to a proverb ; but the tre- 
mendous assaults of Christianity and its 
steady advance compelled the hon'zes to 
searchings of heart. Now there are many 
things in Japanese Buddhism which were 
unknown thirty years ago, such as schools of 
science and theology, with newspapers, chari- 
table enterprises, ethical reform, and an 
entirely new atmosphere of activity. 



113 



CHAPTER XVI 

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND DIPLOMACY 

FROM the decade following the appari- 
tion of Perry's peaceful armada, foreign 
influences, in law, theology, medicine, the 
sciences, agriculture, engineering, journalism, 
education, have been multifarious and ever in 
overwhelming force. There would have been 
no Japan, such as we see to-day, without the 
foreigner's aid. One of the first to give the 
Japanese a new view of the universe, as well 
as to introduce blasting and steam-pumping 
in the mines, was Raphael Pumpelly, the 
geologist, born at Owego, New York, and en- 
gaged in 1861-63 in exploration of the island 
of Yezo. His book " Across America and 
Asia" was a revelation in science, as John 
Lafarge's chapter in it was of that Japanese 
art which Fenollosa, of Salem, Massachusetts, 
has constrained the elect heirs to revere and pre- 
serve. This great island of Yezo, its mines, 

114 



Literature, Science, Diplomacy 

its coal, its geology, have been almost wholly 
exploited by Americans. The capital, Sap- 
poro, has been laid out like a city in the 
United States, and the railways and machinery 
are from the same country. 

With this general development, or with 
scientific work and progress in Japan, are 
associated the honored names of William 
P. Blake, Dr. Antisell, Horace Capron, 
Stuart Eldredge, Benjamin Smith Lyman, 
Henry Smith Munroe, Edward Sylvester 
Morse, C. O. Whitman, H. M. Paul, T. C. 
Mendenhall, Winfield Scott Chaphn, John C. 
Cutter, N. Willis Whitney, F. F. Jewett, 
Edward Warren Clark, M. N. WyckofF, 
William S. Clark, J. A. L. Waddell, William 
Wheeler, D. P. Penhallow, William P. 
Brooks, Cecil H. Peabody, Ulysses Treat, 
Dr. Leland, D. W. Ap Jones, Joseph 
Ury Crawford, and scores of others, who 
must pardon the writer for .sins of omis- 
sion. The whole world is indebted to the 
American FenoUosa for his success in per- 
suading the Japanese to preserve and main- 
tain, not only their ancient treasures, but 
the native ideals and principles of their art. 

115 



America in the East 

The average spectator who sees the brightly 
lacquered street-car moving rapidly along, 
by cable underneath or trolley overhead, may 
not take great interest in the power-house. 
So one sees wonderful results in Japan with- 
out thinking much of the " Yatoi-tojin," or 
hired foreigner. Certain little " folders," 
which one could buy in Tokio for a cent or 
two, giving the names and salaries of the for- 
eign employees, though perhaps beneath the 
notice of a native historian, are significant to 
the philosophical student who inquires into 
causes. 

Probably Bowditch's " Navigator " was the 
first American work put into Japanese, but 
whole series of our educational text-books, 
from Webster's Spelling-Book and Diction- 
ary up through all lines of science, geographi- 
cal, historical, intellectual, and theological 
science, have been bought, read, used, trans- 
lated, or adapted by the tens of thousands of 
copies. Wilson, Pinneo, Mitchell, Quack- 
enbos, Goodrich, Wayland, Haven, Potter, 
Sanders, Brown, Guyot, Murray, Gray, 
Morse, Hitchcock, Jarvis, Cutter, Robinson, 
Perry, Walker, Swinton, Carey, Woolsey, 

ii6 




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Literature, Science, Diplomacy 

Draper, to say nothing of American lights in 
theology and belles-lettres, are names stand- 
ing for single books or series, and known to 
thousands of the Mikado's subjects. Our 
political classics, the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, Washington's Farewell Address, and 
the Constitution of the United States, were 
early and accurately done into Japanese. 
Lives of Washington, Franklin, Perry, and 
other statesmen have been widely read. 
" The perseverance of Columbus, the pluck 
of Captain John Smith, the gentleness of 
Pocahontas, the endurance of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, the virtues of Washington, the good 
sense of Franklin, the sturdy manhood and 
integrity of Lincoln, are oft-quoted examples " 
in Japan, writes a Japanese. The first, and 
for a few years almost the only, history of the 
world read was that by Peter Parley, whose 
form of easy English had a tremendous 
fascination for the Japanese. Indeed, until 
within the past decade, it was very manifest 
that the English style of nearly all Japanese 
who wrote English had been first modelled on 
the style of Peter Parley, the Yankee whose 
penname stands for a literary clan in which 

117 



America in the East 

even Hawthorne was a kinsman. Better 
models and higher literature were studied, 
and now " the new book in New Japan '' 
shows most decidedly the strong influence of 
American methods and authors. Hundreds 
of natives now write English fluently and 
correctly. 

Theoretically, the national constitution of 
1889 is the gift of the Emperor to his people. 
In reality, it is the definite evolution of forces 
long gathering, and taking shape and form 
chiefly from the environment and influence 
of the United States — Japan's nearest west- 
ern neighbor. In the '40' s, a Japanese 
governor, wishing to find out the rank of a 
certain American commander, asked a ship- 
wrecked American sailor, telling Jack to be- 
gin at the beginning and descend. He did 
so, and gave as the source of all authority 
" the people." This puzzled the Japanese 
officer. Now, however, it is quite easy for 
even Cabinet officers in Tokio to understand 
how the people can be first in power, for none 
there be, or can be, but must reckon with 
popular opinion, as created by the press and 
the widespread information and the spirit of 

118 



Literature, Science, Diplomacy 

the age. Indeed, the last Cabinet split in 
November, 1898, on a very small rock — the 
rather too previous reference in his speech, 
by the Minister of Education, to the possi- 
bility of Japan's becoming a republic. 

In diplomacy, Americans have been first in 
showing friendship, giving help and stimulus 
and example, to the Japanese. In naval ex- 
ploits, they taught needed lessons, now frankly 
acknowledged by those who received them. 
The generous work of Perry and Harris are 
well understood by the Japanese, who remem- 
ber also that our country was the first to 
make a postal and an extradition treaty, and 
also, without waiting for any precedent and 
without the approval of France, Holland, or 
Great Britain, made restitution of the Shimo- 
noseki indemnity of 1863, which money was 
expended' by Japan in educational purposes. 
The United States also led the way in desire 
and determination to revise the old treaties 
in the interests of righteousness, though, to 
our shame, it resulted that Great Britain 
finally won the credit which was properly 
due to our country. John A. Bingham, as 
Premier Matsugata gladly acknowledges, per- 

119 



America in the East 

sonally instructed the leaders of Japan in 
what to do and what to avoid. 

Over twenty years ago I hinted at the diffi- 
culty of a foreigner's writing a good history 
of Japan, not so much from lack of materials 
as from psychological differences. Yet the 
domain of native thought is now fairly well 
exploited, and almost wholly by Americans. 
They have opened the minds of the Japanese, 
and have shown us how they think and feel. 
Richard Hildreth, Edward H, House, Per- 
cival Lowell, Lafcadio Hearn, Henry T, 
Finck, John Lafarge, Arthur May Knapp, F. 
Warrington Eastlake, Alice Bacon, Edward 
Greey, Arthur C, Maclay, Edvv^ard S. Morse, 
John Luther Long, M. L. Gordon, Flora B. 
Harris, E. R. Scidmore, Roger Riordan, with 
S. R. Brown and J. C. Hepburn, George 
William Knox, Duane B. Simmons, J. H. 
Wigmore, who were makers of the tools for 
analysis and vision, have photographed for 
us the Japanese soul. Leader of all in prac- 
tical mastery of the Japanese mind and will, 
and in ability to turn the heart of the nation's 
statesmen whither he would, was the late 
Guido F. Verbeck. These men have shown 

I20 



Literature, Science, Diplomacy 

us the mental traits, revealed the philosophy 
and literature, and thus made revelation of 
the background whence the native triumphs 
of art have sprung and the flowers of genius 
and enterprise have bloomed. 

In this power to discover and measurably 
to understand the mind of the Japanese, we 
discern one proof of the ability of Americans, 
as of Englishmen, to deal successfully with 
Asiatic peoples. 



121 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE AMERICANS IN KOREA 

WHAT Americans have wrought . in 
Japan, they have succeeded in doing 
also in Korea. Here for centuries the her- 
mit's policy had been pursued of keeping out 
foreigners, devastating the frontiers, and re- 
straining the people inside the country. 
Perry's peaceful opening of one hermit 
nation in 1854 was the model and inspiration 
in 1876 to Kuroda and Mori in luring Korea 
out of her cave by treaty instead of by blood- 
shed. In 1882 Commodore Shufeldt, in the 
United States steamer " Swatara," after pre- 
vious failures and great perseverance, made the 
first treaty of a Western nation with the Land 
of Morning Calm. Soon the white-clothed 
Koreans were seen on Broadway, President 
Arthur, in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, receiving 
on Evacuation Day these envoys with heads 
caged in horsehair. In June, 1884, after the 
riot and coup d'etat of December 4, when, 

122 



The Americans in Korea ^ 

with the hoary old weapons of assassination, 
some hasty reformers " moved a vote of cen- 
sure'* upon their enemies, the King's Min- 
isters, and blew a hurricane of reform for 
forty-eight hours, there were heads off and a 
battle-field. Such attempted condensation of 
centuries of evolution into a space of time 
between two sunrises failed. 

Then an American missionary. Dr. Henry 
N. Allen, demonstrated the superiority of 
Western surgical methods. This opened the 
door. Soon followed hospitals, dispensaries, 
day-schools, churches, the translation of the 
Bible into Korean, orphanages, Sunday- 
schools, Christian literature, newspapers and 
periodicals, and the dawning of a new world 
of ideas and the making of new men and 
women. The war of 1894-5 prepared the 
way for mighty changes. The first railway 
from Chemulpo to Seoul, with its iron bridges 
and modern equipments, and the first electric 
lights and street-railways in Seoul, the ex- 
ploitation and development of the mines, have 
been begun and carried out by Americans. 
The renovation of the capital city from the 
similitude of a pig-sty to one of the brightest 

123 



America in the East 

and cleanest cities in the East is the work 
of native officers who had experience in 
Washington. In a wordj the making of 
grammars and dictionaries for the mastery 
of the language, the educational system, the 
inception of railways, bridges, and other ma- 
terial enterprises, show the practical quality 
of the mind and character of Americans, and 
their ability to grapple with those new prob- 
lems which now confront us. 



124 




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(- 

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CHAPTER XVIII 

HAWAII, OUR NEW POSSESSION 

UR new possessions lie nearly midway 
between Cuba and the Philippines, 
both as to latitude and longitude. In area, 
they are about the size of Connecticut and 
Delaware combined. Of the twelve islands, 
four are barren rocks, one is the home of 
lepers, seven are fertile, beautiful, and peopled. 
Hawaii is the half-way house betv\^een conti- 
nental shores. Cut by the parallels which 
pass through Mexico and Annam, it is rich 
in sub-tropical fruits and food, withal hand- 
somely suitable as a haven for ships and the 
storage of coal, which nowadays is of more 
value than the winds to the sailor. It seems 
to be very distant and to lie so far out west 
in the Pacific Ocean as to be semi-Asiatic or 
" Oriental," yet it is several hundred miles 
this side of the western end of our Alaskan 
possessions. Indeed, now that the Philip- 
pines have become ours, to remain under the 

125 



America in the East 

Stars and Stripes, we shall have to revise our 
use of the terms " East '' and " West." 
Hawaii has a name easily pronounced. Sen- 
timentally, it has long been part of America. 
It is now so in reality. 

Although Spaniards first discovered Hawaii, 
and some were even wrecked upon its shores, 
mingling by intermarriage their blood with 
natives, whose descendants, the Kekea, show 
a light skin, Caucasian facial contour, and 
freckled faces, yet Captain Cook's is the first 
European name associated with this new bit 
of the United States. He went out into the 
South Seas to observe the transit of Venus 
over the face of the sun, setting sail from 
Plymouth in the ship " Endeavour." He 
succeeded handsomely. He added the con- 
tinent of the kangaroo to Great Britain, and 
returned in 1771. On his second journey, 
to discover the supposed unknown continent 
Terra Australis, he left Plymouth July 13, 
1772. In 1778 he got back, having lost but 
one man and hardly a spar, to tell of the 
Hawaiian Islands, which he had seen in 1778. 
These he named after the reputed noble in- 
ventor of stratified refreshments. This worthy 

126 



Hawaii, our New Possession 

fourth Earl of Sandwich, John Montague, 
who liked to play cards without intermis- 
sion, had his luncheon, of slices of bread 
inclosing ham, brought to him at the gaming- 
table. 

About this time our fathers were also in- 
terested in transits, and the elements for that 
of Venus over the sun's disk, on December 9, 
1774, were calculated by our own Rittenhouse, 
of Philadelphia. The platform used by the 
astronomers stood in Independence Square, 
and from it the Declaration of Independence, 
when fully signed, was read to the people. 
It showed a new-born political star moving 
across the disk of history. In our generation 
we have seen, on July 4, 1894, the Republic 
of Hawaii, like lovely Venus, rising out of the 
sea, or a new star above the horizon. This 
same month of July is rich in births and 
transitions. It is that also of the Dutch 
Declaration of Independence from Spain, in 
1579, as well as that of the acceptance by the 
United States of America of the gift of the 
first Republic in the Pacific, which hence- 
forth shines as a luminary in the American 
galaxy. 

127 



America m the East 

How many people are in our new oceanic 
territory? The latest census, that of 1896, 
enumerated 109,020 persons. Of pure Ha- 
waiians, there were 31,019 ; of part Hawaiian 
blood, 8,045 ; of Japanese, 24,407 ; of Chinese, 
21,616 ; of Portuguese, 15,191 ; leaving 8,302 
Americans and Europeans, the former being 
by far in majority and constituting the bulk 
of the educated persons of influence and 
property. 

Let us look at each of these strains of 
humanity. While probably the majority of 
Asiatics in the islands are immigrants from 
China and Japan, most of the Portuguese, 
certainly one-half of them, were born in the 
archipelago. It is believed that about fifteen 
thousand persons of European or American 
blood first saw the light in Hawaii. Thou- 
sands of children also are the offspring of 
Chinese and Japanese fathers and Hawaiian 
mothers, forming a stock which is noticeably 
an improvement on the aboriginal element. 
The major portion of the white foreigners 
who are not Americans are British, Scandi- 
navian, and German. 

Whence came the Hawaiians ? Who shall 

128 



Hawaii, our New Possession 

declare their generation ? It is like trying to 
separate giants in combatj or like riding be- 
tween the fires of two hostile armies, to attempt 
decision of such a question. One line of 
writers declare in their books that the Kana- 
kas, or Hawaiians, emigrated from the East, 
— that is, from America. This theory bases 
itself upon the general trend of the winds and 
ocean currents, and links the islanders with 
the Toltecs of Mexico, while certain resem- 
blances in mental traits and physical features 
are also pointed out. 

Other scholars fortify their conclusions that 
the Hawaiians came from the West, or Asia, 
by arguments drawn from language and the 
similarity of customs, tools, and household 
equipments to those in the Malay island 
world. They think that the Hawaiians are 
among the oldest of the Polynesian peoples. 
They argue that the various archipelagoes and 
islands of the southern Pacific were colonized 
by people of an ancient branch of the Malay 
race, who started from what is now the Dutch 
East Indies, and gradually scattered them- 
selves over the face of the seas. The con- 
flict of opinions, between those who look to 
9 129 



America in the East 

the sunrise and the others who point to the 
sunset, has in its course taken on features 
which remind one of that " odium " which, 
whether called theological or scientific, has its 
seat in human nature, rather than in the nature 
of the subject of inquiry. 

In reality the controversy illustrates the 
old story of the shield with two sides, for 
nature seems to point out that both theories 
are true. The well-mapped ocean-world, so 
long studied by hydrographers, shows clearly 
that the Hawaiians came from both the West 
and the East, first from one and then from 
the other. When we study the action of that 
great Pacific Gulf Stream called the Kuro 
Shiwo, or Black Current, — first scientifically 
studied and described by Captain Silas Bent, 
U. S. N., — we find an explanation of the mys- 
tery and the reconciliation of opposing the- 
ories. From the tropical ocean boiler a river 
of hot water runs up from the Malay Archi- 
pelago past the Philippines, Formosa, Riu 
Kiu, Japan, Kuriles, and the Aleutian Islands. 
Then, flowing down past the coast of Califor- 
nia and northern Mexico, it bends in half its 
volume westward, and, as the Equatorial 

130 



Hawaii, our New Possession 

Drift Current, streams toward the Sandwich 
Islands and back to Japan. A tree uprooted 
in a monsoon off Luzon will drift northward, 
eastward, and westward, and finally be stranded 
off Oahu, " swinging around the circle " in a 
way that might have surprised Andrew John- 
son. Boats disabled and driven out to sea 
have done the same thing, I have the record 
of scores of such waifs. It was the frequent 
rescue of these Japanese junks with dead and 
living men on board, by American ships, 
which first led to the repeated despatch of our 
vessels and finally of a fleet to Japan. Only 
last year a Japanese junk that had been swept 
in this semi-circular and recurved current 
stranded on one of the Hawaiian Islands. 

Furthermore, the analogies of language and 
the remarkable basic similarity of personal 
and household arrangements in the whole 
island world, from the Philippines to the 
Sitkan and Hawaiian Archipelagoes, show 
that the North American " Indians," of all 
sorts and kinds, and the Hawaiians are as 
closely related to one another as are the vari- 
ous European nations. He who studies the 
line of natural lighthouses, the chain of land- 

131 



America in the East 

marksj the unceasing food-supply lying along 
that great circle, from the Malay Archipelago 
to Central America, has little trouble to ac- 
count for the origin of at least some of the 
natives of America in Hawaii. 



132 



CHAPTER XIX 

OUR NEW FELLOW-CITIZENS 

A ROUGH glance at the history of 
Hawaii shows the old story of con- 
querors and conquered, suggesting that every 
portion of the earth has been feudalized or 
its land held in military tenure. Just as the 
Malays and Japanese lived under forms of 
feudalism, even before any Mendez Pinto or 
Captain Cook changed the unlettered night 
of prehistoric times into the dawn of written 
history, so the Hawaiian had wrought out a 
feudal system not intrinsically different from 
that of mediaeval Europe. Even to-day, keen 
observers believe they can trace the blood of the 
old chiefs, who through the centuries of war 
had struggled toward centralization of author- 
ity. Before white men came, Hawaiian soci- 
ety consisted of two classes, — those who 
owned land, and those who did not. By the 
time Cook arrived, there were only five or 
six independent rulers, each of whom in his 

^33 



America in the East 

petty kingdom was suzerain over vassal chiefs 
who supplied food or military service. These 
lower chiefs were in turn served by the middle 
men between the rulers and the people, the 
latter being little more than serfs. This 
tendency to centralization became incarnate 
in Kamehameha, who at the end of the last 
century had made himself sovereign of the 
whole archipelago. As in our days there has 
been a tendency in hermit nations to self- 
reformation, so in Hawaii it seems hardly 
possible to deny that, without foreign influence 
(though it is quite possible that the little in- 
fusion of Spanish blood may have had some 
transforming power), there was a tendency in 
Hawaii toward emergence from barbarism into 
civilization. 

The victor-king, having strengthened his 
kingdom, died in 1819. Fitly to-day his 
statue, in heroic attitude and ancient garb, 
stands in Honolulu. The Hawaiian symbol 
of sovereignty was not crown or sceptre, 
sword, mirror, or crystal ball ; not almanac 
or coinage ; but a feather cloak made of thou- 
sands of " wee modest " feathers, tipped with 
a spot of color, which grow singly on the 

134 



Our New Fellow-Citizens 

inner bodies of a species of little birds nearly- 
extinct. Under the courageous leadership of 
his son and his widow, the age-old system of 
Taboo was overthrown, and the reactionary 
party defeated in battle. Then a wild storm 
of iconoclasm burst upon the islands. The 
iconoclasts destroyed the idols so thoroughly 
that it was with difficulty thereafter that any 
could be secured for curiosities. When the 
American missionaries, fourteen strong, came 
in 1820, they found a nation without a relig- 
ion. They reduced the language to writing, 
introducing the printing-press and gradually 
fitting the natives for civilized government. 
The evolution of rights and privileges fol- 
lowed steadily upon the adoption of Christian- 
ity by the Hawaiians, while the introduction 
of horses and cattle, as well as the innumer- 
able ideas and improvements by foreigners, 
completely changed the face of the country 
and of society, especially where human beings 
were grouped in villages, towns, and cities. 

The native Hawaiian is still the most in- 
teresting specimen of humanity to be found 
in the islands. He is a winsome and a happy 
person, this native Kanaka. He has the 

135 



America in the East 

genius of good nature. He laughs easily and 
enjoys life. He troubles not himself about 
to-morrow, for he takes no thought of it. 
He is like " our friend the enemy/' whose 
reply to the call to work to-day is, " Ma- 
riana." Mother Nature has spoiled her island 
children by long-continued indulgence, and 
they suffer, though perhaps unconsciously, 
because she has not chastised them enough 
with hunger and the sweat of toil. On her 
other and favorite sons she has during gener- 
ations used the discipline of leaden skies, 
sharp winds, cold winters, rocky soil, and 
relentless foes ; but in Hawaii there is no 
weather, and, except where lava boils or cakes, 
no infertile ground. 

Mark Twain's inquirer for meteorological 
variety, who was referred to Connecticut, 
where he could find one hundred and thirty- 
three kinds of weather within twenty-four 
hours, would be a bankrupt in Honolulu. In 
perpetual sunshine, amid sapphire waves, on 
a soil that continually laughs with fruit and 
food, even without the tickling of spade or 
harrow, the happy Hawaiian has a genius for 
laziness. He eats and drinks, having learned, 

136 



Our New Fellow-Citizens 

like the waves, " thus to live in the moment, 
too." Why should he worry to accumulate ? 
The .seas abound with fish. The bananas, 
oranges, and cocoanuts hang near his grass 
hut by the millions. No one could ever 
locate, or even imagine, a Christmas-tree in 
these isles, where branches are ever laden with 
color and delicacies. 

Only an occasional hour of work is needed 
to keep the taro-patch in order. The grass 
seems to be a permanent bed, inviting to 
continuous naps, while the flowers, fragrant 
and beautiful, lure to amusement and decora- 
tion. The Kanaka will indeed ride his pony 
— purchased for what the man in the song 
found in his inside pocket- — to town, and 
there, on the dock or post-office steps, chat 
over the news by the hour ; but hard work 
has no charm for this son of the sun. His 
wife and children, like himself, love flowers. 
Flis daughter, flower-garlanded, and eschew- 
ing side-saddle, rides astride a horse and gal- 
lops over road and street like a " scorcher." 
Like her father and brother, the maiden is at 
home in the surf, having learned to swim 
when a baby. 

137 



America in the East 

We are not likely to be oppressed finan- 
cially by our new fellow-citizens. Hawaii 
has not yet reared a native millionaire or a 
Shylock. The Kanaka can keep a fruit- 
stand, a fish-stall, or a curio-shop, but his is 
not the inheritance of the cunning Jew or the 
shrewd Yankee. The results of centuries of 
mercantile training are not in him. Though 
he makes a dehghtful servitor behind the 
counter, it is rare indeed that he is found in 
the counting-room, or that his name appears 
in that of a firm known abroad as well as at 
home. Nevertheless, you will find him at 
all occupations. He makes a superb boat- 
man and fisherman, a good mechanic, book- 
keeper, compositor, and even editor, lawyer, 
and minister. He is a politician also, but as 
a cunning follower, never as a forceful leader. 
Life has been too easy for him and his ances- 
tors to enable him to compete with men from 
Old or New England ; with the Chinese, who 
have reduced competition in practical life to a 
science ; or even with the restless Japanese. 

If, as some German philosophers say, the 
potato has caused the decadence and proved 
the ruin of the Irish, so the taro has pre- 

13S 



Our New Fellow-Citizens 

vented the development of the Hawaiians. 
This water-plant, so common in China and 
Japan, has found its most congenial home in 
Hawaii. There is no " martyrdom of man," 
to use Winwood Readers suggestive phrase, 
in Hawaiian agriculture. Drop the taro either 
in the irrigated ditches, anywhere, or even on 
the uplands, in the moist climate of Hilo, 
continue to plant at odd times during the year, 
and one acre will yield enough to sustain eigh- 
teen men during twelve months. One small 
patch, kept from weeds by an occasional hour 
of labor, will easily feed a whole family. 
" Ten acres enough " in Yankee land may 
safely lose its decimal in Hawaii and yet 
suffice for a household. This crop, which 
never fails, together with bananas, wild oranges, 
cocoanuts, and fish, makes sustenance too sure. 
There is not enough of the " discipline of un- 
certainty " for the best human development. 

Our new fellow-citizen finds his chief food 
m poi. This he makes by cooking, scraping, 
and pounding taro, waiting for a slight fer- 
mentation, adding water, and beating into 
paste. Then, probably after his fingers have 
been well greased with roast pig (somewhat 

139 



America in die East 

after the most approved style hinted at in 
Charles Lamb's " Dissertation '') or even with 
fried fish, he whips a goodly mass around his 
forefinger, and hoists it into his mouth, with- 
out call for fork or spoon. In modern times, 
his house stove very likely consists of an old 
kerosene tin, cut out at one side and on the 
top ; but for an open-air feast he uses an oven 
dug in the earth. In this his pigs, cuts of 
beef, and the meat food generally, are wrapped 
up in taro-leaves. Then the packages, being 
properly stratified into a ^vq or six decker 
sandwich, guarded by moistened banana-tree 
fibre and laid between red-hot stones at the 
bottom and a top mass of earth, are steamed 
during five or six hours. This process equals 
Delmonico's, and beats the revolving spits of 
our hotels, in bringing out the flavor. Thus 
the most deliciously cooked viands for their 
famous feasts are served on palm-leaves al 
fresco. 

Nevertheless, the labor for such a feast is 
a severe tax on the Kanaka. It means a spurt. 
Then comes the inevitable reaction. Fond as 
he is of drinking and being merry, the Ha- 
waiian is still more fond of recovering from 

140 



Our New Fellow-Citizens 

weariness by resting long in "sweet doing 
nothing." No wonder that the ceaselessly 
industrious and thrifty Chinamen beat the 
natives at farming, and in most lines of en- 
deavor that require manual labor, while the 
brainy Yankee and the European rich in 
nervous force excel him wherever prolonged 
head-work is required. 

This is true of the majority. There is 
another side, of course, and a nobler side, but 
of the minority. It is a serious question, not 
indeed whether the Hawaiian must, but 
whether he will, go the way of the dodo and 
the bison ; for, besides being dandled in luxury 
on Mother Nature's lap, he has been worsted 
in the battle of life by the horrible diseases 
which the white men brought, when they 
" bade good-bye to God and self-restraint " 
in the old days, before the better influences of 
Christianity rooted themselves in these isles 
which waited so long for Christ's law. 

It is almost certain that Captain Cook's 
estimate of 400,000 natives is a gross exagger- 
ation. The number should have been divided 
by two at least. Yet it is sad to-day to behold 
so small a survival of the original population. 

141 



America in the East 

Where, however, the pure Hawaiians can 
live by themselves, with a maximum of the 
blessings and a minimum of the bane brought 
by civilization, they increase in numbers, as 
well as in physical strength and intellectual 
graces. 

Notwithstanding the great missionary suc- 
cesses, it is a mistake to suppose that Christ- 
ianity within two generations can or does 
extinguish the paganism of centuries. Not 
a few brutalizing superstitions still remain in 
the island. Nevertheless, the conversion of 
the "Sandwich Islanders" to the religion of 
Jesus forms one of the shining episodes in the 
grand story of missionary triumph. Not only 
have there been a transformation of native 
character, and hundreds of earnest and conse- 
crated native pastors trained and set to work, 
but Hawaii has been a centre of the radiation 
of Gospel light and power through all the 
South Sea, by means of evangelists and teachers 
to other islands. What early Christian Ireland 
was to Europe, Hawaii has been to Polynesia. 



142 



^■ 



a 




John L. Stevens, U. S Minister to Hawaii^ 1892. 




CHAPTER XX 

ORIENTALS AND OCCIDENTALS IN HAWAII 

UR new fellow-citizens, the Portuguese 
in Hawaii, form a hopeful element in 
the community. They are industrious and 
honest, being mostly laborers, but excellent 
citizens. They are, for the most part, the 
sons and grandsons of those who were brought 
from the Azores and Madeiras to labor on the 
plantations. Their capacity for improvement 
is shown in this, that as soon as the Chinese 
were imported in the summer of 1865, the 
Portuguese, especially those born on the 
islands, turned their hands to the work of 
skilled mechanics. Most of the public im- 
provements in the archipelago have been 
wrought by them. They co-operate in most 
of the social and political measures which are 
inaugurated by the intelligent men of the com- 
munity, and are heartily in sympathy with the 
United States, having thus far used their rights 
of suffrage intelligently. Their spiritual sus- 

143 



America in the East 

tenance is derived through the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, which always makes for law and 
order. 

The Chinese began to come in 1 865, having 
been invited, and indeed brought over, by the 
Hawaiian Bureau of Immigration. As it is 
nearly impossible to get a Chinese woman 
across the " black waves," these immigrants 
were all males, and therefore did not improve 
the social life of the Hawaiians, any more than 
the white sailors from Christendom. But, as 
in all the Malay and Polynesian world, the 
son of a Chinese father is a decided improve- 
ment on his insular mother's stock, usually 
resembling his paternal rather than his 
maternal ancestors. 

The Chinese takes to labor naturally. He 
knows how to replenish the earth and subdue 
it. He has the hereditary virtues of thrift, 
patience, and industry. In Hawaii, he has 
control of much rich land once held by natives. 
Now we see the rice-fields and taro-patches, 
truck-farms and poultry-yards, everywhere 
worked by Chinese, and that many of these 
farmers and merchants from the Flower Land 
have become rich. Indeed, it is almost im- 

144 



Orientals and Occidentals 

possible even for so-called Christian civiliza- 
tion to stand against the competition of the 
Chinaman. Hence the old story is told again. 
The invitation, once given in need, is with- 
drawn and the barrier set up. Since 1886 no 
Chinaman need or can come to Hawaii. 

" Everlasting Great Japan," which in the 
fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth 
centuries sent her sons as pirates, traders, 
travellers, and immigrants all over eastern Asia 
from Saghalin to Java and from Borneo to 
India, altered her poUcy in a hurry when 
to the Portuguese was added the Spaniard. 
From 1637 to 1868 she fiercely excluded the 
foreigner, and rigidly included her own people. 
When, by the co-operation of forces within 
and without, Japan became the Mikado's 
Empire in fact as well as in name, the new 
Japanese of the Dispersion began to number 
thousands. Yet those in Hawaii were not 
approved or recognized by the Tokio Govern- 
ment until 1884, after which date they began 
to emigrate in num,bers that frightened both 
natives and white men in Hawaii, who, 
instead of the quiet rustics and polished gentle- 
men whom they had thus far seen, beheld an 
10 145 



America in the East 

obstinate, ignorant, and altogether unlovely 
class from the back-country parts and worse 
areas in the Japanese cities. Later on, there 
was some improvement in the quality of these 
little brown men — so distinctly inferior to 
the Chinese in size, but so much more self- 
assertive and quarrelsome. When it was found 
that there had come upon Hawaiian soil an 
army of 20,000 " Japs,'' among whom, as it 
seemed impossible to doubt, were many ex- 
soldiers, there was genuine alarm. When, 
further, the Imperial Government took inter- 
est in their presence, and sent men-of-war to 
the island to look after the sons of Nippon, 
there was consternation among the Americans, 
who were dearly hoping, yet with fear, to see 
what we now behold. When, further, these 
annexationists contrasted the splendid modern 
steel cruiser " Naniwa " with the antiquated 
wooden warships of the United States, they 
feared that, between the increasing emigration 
and the political ambition of the Japanese, 
Hawaii was certain to become a portion of Dai 
Nippon. Indeed, after whipping the Chinese, 
and ripping open the colossus of China for 
European aggression, the average Japanese 

146 



Orientals and Occidentals 

abroad was not excessively modest. This fear 
of Japan was not allayed when Hawaii became 
a republic. It seemed imperative that wise 
regulative measures should not be counter- 
acted by Japanese craft and unscrupulousness. 
The annexationists beat the big drum rather 
noisily, and strained their throats unnecessarily 
in clamoring for quick union with the United 
States, lest the maw of the Japanese dragon 
should engulf the tiny republic. 

Nevertheless, I confess to have had more 
amusement than edification while reading, in 
the newspapers of this decade, about the Jap- 
anese bugaboo. I can safely affirm that there 
never has been the slightest danger of Japan's 
seizing the Hawaiian Islands, or any sign of 
the Tokio Government's having any desire to 
swamp the country with emigrants. If there 
is one thing certain in the history of the past, 
in the conditions of the present, or in the 
possibilities of the future, it is that Japan, 
while strenuous for her rights, will not seek 
a quarrel with the United States. The Jap- 
anese, as individuals and as a nation, have 
their faults and weaknesses, but they know 
real friendship — yes, even when the manifes- 

147 



America in the East 

tations of it are sometimes odd ; and they feel 
not only sure but certain that they have one 
good friend in the United States. Further- 
more, they have always believed that Hawaii 
could never be anything else than a part of 
the United States. 

Supposing that of the one hundred thou- 
sand and more present inhabitants of Hawaii, 
one-half are our fellow-citizens, what is our 
duty toward them ? What prospect have we 
for seeing them and their children becoming 
as good American citizens as are the average 
in New York or California, in Louisiana or 
Arkansas ? Those who think of Americans 
as only " pure-blooded Anglo-Saxons " — if 
there ever were such persons, at any time 
since De Foe wrote his " True-Born English- 
man " — may look with fear and contempt 
upon " our new fellow-citizens.'' But those 
who, through the perspective of history, see 
that, not as a matter of opinion, but of fact, 
we are a very mixed people — not having even 
a majority of English, though probably a ma- 
jority of British, descent — who have learned by 
study how large a proportion of the blood of 
Continental Europe already runs in the veins 

148 



Orientals and Occidentals 

of our nation, who brings home to his mind 
cleariy how many millions of fellow- Americans 
there are who are descended more or less di- 
rectly from Indian or African ancestors, will 
not be frightened at the problem of Hawaii. 
We not only need but we ought to be ashamed 
of ourselves as Christians if we have not the 
Caleb spirit to say of this new promised land 
that, educationally and spiritually, "we are 
well able to possess it." 

The man of faith who is acquainted with 
the home missionary work of our churches, 
who knows what has been done for the negro, 
the Indian, and the Chinese within our bor- 
ders, who has mastered the literature of mis- 
sions, who has read, marked, and inwardly 
digested such a book as that of Dr. James S. 
Dennis on " Christian Missions and Social 
Progress," will not fear, but rather rejoice 
than cower in fear before, this fresh problem. 
This new part of America, like the older land, 
means opportunity. Had I not myself seen 
the wonderful works of God and of the con- 
secrated service of my fellow-Americans in 
Japan, had I not known the co-working of 
the heavenly Father and of his children in 

149 



America in the East 

other lands of the East, had I experience 
only of that which I saw and heard at Min- 
neapolis in October, 1897, at the semi-centen- 
nial of the American Missionary Association, 
I should still believe, as Caleb did of Canaan, 
that " we are all able to possess it," and ought 
to welcome gladly the task of entrance into 
the white harvest-field of Hawaiian humanity. 
What God and American Christians in co- 
operation have done in raising up the fierce 
Sioux and Chippewa, and the slave from the 
indigo swamp, to Christian manhood, can be 
done in any part of the United States, whether 
continental or insular. Personally, I do not 
believe better Christians are made than the 
Chinese and Japanese when truly turned to 
God in Christ Jesus. Indeed, it may possibly 
be that these sons of that continent, from 
which came all true and abiding religions, 
have something to teach us. What I believe 
of the Asians, there are Christian teachers on 
the active field who believe of the Hawaiians. 
Of the " remnant " we can speak with as 
much confidence and warmth as did the 
Hebrew prophet of that which made the new 
State of Israel after Babylonian captivity. It 



Orientals and Occidentals 

is they and their fathers who have given 
Hawaii her Christianity, her splendid civiliza- 
tion, and a future of hope for the aboriginal 
and the newer inhabitants. Their conduct 
during the trying times of corrupt royalty, 
under the discipline of cold blasts from Wash- 
ington, and as makers of the republic, is 
beyond praise. No finer specimens of the 
Americans abroad, now become Americans at 
home, have been known in our history. We 
need not fear or doubt the power of our 
people to plant and nourish colonies, and to 
elevate inferior races, while we have the inspir- 
ing example of the Americans in Hawaii 
before us. 

Having glanced at the manifold activities of 
the versatile Americans in Asia during the 
past century, I propose now to show in a few 
rapid sketches what has been accomplished by 
the navy of the United States. It will be 
seen that in all the years before the pivotal 
date of May i, 1898, our officers and sailors 
in the ships of wood were as worthy of honor 
and praise as those in the modern cruisers of 
steel. The past record of our navy in the Far 
East augurs hopefully for the solution of 

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America in the East 

future problems. That arm of the national 
service which can show the names of Glynn, 
Perry, McDougal, Pearson, Foote, Tattnall, 
Rodgers, and Dewey on its record, is not 
likely to lack men of heroism, wisdom, 
patience, and perseverance in the coming 
century. 



^52 



CHAPTER XXI 

OUR FLAG IN THE WATERS OF CHINA 
AND JAPAN 



A 



T the date of the expulsion of the 
. Spaniard and the Portuguese from 
Japan, a new nation was begun by the Pilgrims 
at the edge of the North American wilderness. 
Two centuries later, in 1 837, the unarmed ship 
" Morrison," sent by an American firm in China 
to take back Japanese waifs into Yedo Bay, 
was fired on and driven away. "Why," 
asked the owner, " is the sentence of expulsion 
passed so long ago upon the Spaniards and 
Portuguese entailed upon us ? " It is credit- 
able to the Great Pacific Power, as President 
Arthur named the United States, that her very 
first ships carried the olive-branch. Beside 
the apostles of gainful trade, our country sent 
missionaries, physicians, and teachers, plantmg 
churches, hospitals, schools, and colleges. In 
the empire of China, first peacefully opened to 
American commerce by Shaw, and in Japan 

153 



America in the East 

and Korea, both led into the world's brother- 
hood of nations by Perry and Shufeldt, blood 
has been spilled by our people only in self- 
defence or after provocation. 

The Dutch and British East India Com- 
panies opened the eyes of Americans to the 
rich harvest-fields of trade whitening in the 
Far East. It was American ginseng that first, 
through the Hollanders in the Hudson 
Valley, made the Chinese practically aware of 
and interested in "The Country of the 
Flowery Flag.'' It was the Chinese leaf, tea, 
shipped from Amoy on British merchantmen, 
that precipitated the Revolutionary war, bring- 
ing about that event of July 4, 1776, which 
has ever since required an endless supply of 
Chinese fire-crackers to celebrate it. 

No sooner was peace concluded between 
Great Britain and the United States than the 
ship " Empress," loaded with ginseng, and 
commanded by Captain Green, sailed from New 
York on Washington's birthday, February 22, 
1784, for Canton. Major Samuel Shaw, her 
supercargo and ex-artillery oiHcer in the United 
States army, established American trade in 
Canton. In the ship " Massachusetts," he 

154 



China and Japan 

returned, and was American cousul from 1790 
to 1794. The exchange of ginseng and tea, 
and afterwards of cotton and crockery, became 
lively and permanent. Captain Kennedy, in 
1783 in the ship " Columbia," built in 
Plymouth County, Massachusetts, sailed up 
the great river of Oregon and named it after 
his ship, thus making a basis for the Ameri- 
can claims, and opening the way for barter of 
the furs of Oregon for the silks of China. 
Captain Gray carried the American flag round 
the world between the years 1787 and 1790. 
Soon American commerce with China began to 
attract the unwelcome attentions of Chinese 
pirates. 

The first passage at arms between American 
citizens and Chinese was in 1809, when Mr. 
J. P. Sturgis, of Boston, arrived in the ship 
" Atahualpa," Captain Bacon, at Macao. The 
terrible Chinese pirate Apootsae was then 
ravaging the coast, capturing imperial forts, 
laying whole towns under contribution, mas- 
sacring those who opposed him, and terroriz- 
ing the mandarins. In vain were rewards 
offered for his head. Having watched and 
seen the chief officer and an armed boat's crew 

155 



America in the East 

leaving the " Atahualpa" for the city to obtain 
a river pilot;, he thought the capture of the for- 
eign devil's ship would be easy. Ranging his 
junks under color of moving up the river, and 
feigning to run past the American ship, the 
pirates suddenly rounded, expecting to leap 
on board and kill the eighteen or twenty men 
left there. Instead of quick success, the 
Chinaman caught a Tartar. Astounded as 
the Yankees were, their cannon were fortu- 
nately loaded, and they made lively use of 
them, and with Brown Bess muskets, horse- 
pistols, and boarding-pikes, defended them- 
selves with spirit. The Chinese threw on 
deck plenty of those home-made hand-gren- 
ades which, owing to the quantity of sulphur 
in the powder, were unpoetically termed 
" stink-pots," but they killed none of their 
foes. Amid the shrieks and groans of their 
wounded, a hellish din with gongs and drums 
was kept up. The Yankees fired with such 
effect that the Chinese were beaten off. 
Apootsae called away his men, and his ships 
were soon lost to sight. This episode put 
such courage into the cowardly mandarins 
that, by means of bribery and treachery, they 

156 



China and Japan 

secured the cut-throat Apootsae, and had him 
put to death by the slow and prolonged pro- 
cess of hacking, called " the thousand cuts/' 
From this time forth there was intense respect 
for Americans at Canton and Macao, and 
business increased with little interruption. 

The American flag was seen in Japanese 
waters as early as 1797, at a time when the 
future Commodore M. C. Perry and his 
brother Oliver, boys of three and twelve years 
old, trained by their Spartan mother, were 
learning how to conquer self before capturing 
a squadron and opening a hermit empire. 
Over-fat Holland, then neither brave nor 
little, but distracted and bleating like a fat 
sheep before Napoleon the wolf, had been de- 
graded into the Batavian Republic. The 
Dutch flag was wiped oflF the sea, for British 
cruisers were at the ends of the earth. In 
order to keep up their trade-monopoly with 
Japan, the Dutch of Java engaged Captain 
Stewart, on the ship " Eliza " of New York, to 
go to a place of which — except in Swift's 
"Gulliver's Travels" — few Americans had 
ever heard. Thus the thirteen stripes and 
seventeen stars were mirrored on the waters of 

157 



America in the East 

Nagasaki Bay when President Jefferson was in 
Japanese eyes the " King of America." In 
1799 Captain James Devereaux, in the Amer- 
ican ship " Franklin," performed the same task. 
When the nineteenth century opened. Captain 
John Derby, from Salem, Massachusetts, 
under charter of the East India Company, 
attempted to open trade with Japan, but 
failed. In 1803 Stewart, still flying the 
American flag, came again to this loop-hole 
which the Japanese kept open by means of 
the Dutch. Except ginseng, the Japanese 
wanted none of our products. 

Japanese art pictures in symbol the primal 
introduction of civilization into their " Cliff 
Fortress Country " by means of a whale, and 
the god of literature has a brush-pen in one 
hand and a roll or pad of manuscript in the 
other, while he stands in festive attitude on 
the back of a huge sea-monster. In reality, 
it was a whale that introduced the Ameri- 
cans to Japan, and ushered in her present 
amazing prosperity. In search of this fur- 
nisher of oil and bone, American ships moved 
out beyond Nantucket southward, around 
Cape Horn, and up the Pacific. Though 

158 




p 
o 
w 
m 





w 

o 
U 



China and Japan 

the blubber industry was nearly destroyed by 
the Revolutionary war, it revived. By 1812 
our men of the harpoon were so numerous in 
the Pacific Ocean that Commodore David 
Porter, in the " Essex," with David Farragut 
among his midshipmen, was sent out to pro- 
tect Yankee whalers from British depredation. 
Already some had gone far north, bringing 
back stories of how the little brown men of 
Japan caught whales — as they do yet — in 
big nets. Commodore Porter, in 1815, urged 
upon Secretary James Monroe that Japan be 
opened to commerce, and plans were matured 
for the despatch of a frigate and two sloops 
of war ; but the vessels were never sent. 
Now began the long story of the imprison- 
ment of shipwrecked American sailors on the 
coasts of Tycoonland. John Quincy Adams 
denied the right of Dai Nippon to be a hermit 
nation, but his was a voice crying in the 
wilderness. Neither our government nor 
people seemed to be properly interested in 
foreign commerce, much less in any naval 
application of the doctrine of " manifest des- 
tiny " or territorial expansion. 



159 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE ADVENT OF AMERICAN POWER IN 
THE PACIFIC 

WHEN Andrew Jackson became Presi- 
dent, the United States began to 
formulate something like a foreign policy. 
Commodore David Porter made treaties with 
Turkey. The French and the Neapolitans 
were compelled to pay their debts. One of 
the most brilliant of American naval opera- 
tions in the Mediterranean was seen when six 
of the finest floating fortresses in the world, 
under " Old Glory," entered successively the 
Bay of Naples, and ranged their broadsides 
opposite the beautiful city of King Bomba. 
Changing his attitude of haughty refusal to 
pay, he handed over in cash what he owed the 
United States for his father's depredations. 

Even Asia felt the new influence from 
Washington. Edmund Roberts, of Ports- 
mouth, New Hampshire, — posthumously, 
and perhaps truthfully, called in stained-glass 

i6o 



America in the Pacific 

memorial the " ambassador " of the United 
States, but officially President Jackson's 
" agent," and navally rated as captain's clerk, 
— became our efficient first American envoy 
in the Far East. On the sloop of war " Pea- 
cock," after overcoming great obstacles, he 
made treaties with Muscat and Siam. In 
Cochin China, he failed, where success was 
impossible. In the expectation of reaching 
Japan, he died June 12, 1836, at Macao. 
In August of the next year Commodore Ken- 
nedy, in the United States sloop " Peacock," 
reached those islands, one of which Captain 
Reuben Coffin, of Nantucket, had already 
named, but which were called by the Japan- 
ese Bonin, or " no man's land," for they 
were then claimed by no government. Since 
1876 the Bonin group has been made an in- 
tegral part of the Mikado's Empire. The 
" Peacock " was our first man-of-war in Japan- 
ese waters, the forerunner of Dewey and his 
steel squadron. 

Americans took up the torch dropped by 

Roberts to bear it on in the race. Messrs. 

King and Co., of Macao, in their own ship, 

appropriately named after the great missionary 

II 161 



America in the East 

" Morrison/' reached Uraga, in Yedo Bay^ July 
29, 1837. Their freight consisted of ship- 
wrecked Japanese and presents for the people. 
As on William Penn's colonizing ships, there 
was not a gun or cannon aboard. The story 
of their repulse is soon told. Though they 
explained their mission, and were visited by 
hundreds of people who saw their unarmed 
condition, they were fired on before casting 
anchor, and again the next morning from a 
fresh battery of cannon built overnight. The 
same experience met them in Satsuma, farther 
south. In the eyes of the Japanese, the 
Spaniard and Portuguese had tarred all aliens 
with the same brush. 

By the time of " Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too," American naval operations had become 
so far organized that there was an " East India 
squadron." The United States ship of the line 
"Columbus" and the "Vincennes" reached 
Yedo Bay in 1 846, but were at once surrounded 
by scores of armed boats. To the polite letter 
of President Polk, an answer of impudent de- 
fiance was returned, and Commodore Biddle 
was insulted. While in full uniform, stepping 
from a junk, a common Japanese sailor gave 

162 



America in the Pacific 

the American chief a push which landed him 
unceremoniously in the bottom of his own 
boat. Japanese officers promised to punish 
the man, but nothing was done, and the Amer- 
ican ships went away. The immediate result 
was that the American shipwrecked sailors — 
who were not indeed always of the loveliest 
disposition — were more cruelly treated than 
ever. One of them, on threatening possible 
vengeance from American men-of-war, was 
sneeringly told that his government could 
care nothing for poor seamen, for a Japanese 
boatman had insulted even an American ad- 
miral, and had not been made to suffer any 
punishment. 



163 



CHAPTER XXIII 

GLYNN, PERRY, AND HARRIS 

THE episode of Biddle and the boatman 
in Yedo Bay made our naval officers, 
and one in particular, resolve on a different 
course of deportment. Captain Geisinger, 
formerly of the " Peacock," hearing from the 
Dutch consul at Canton of eighteen sailors 
imprisoned at Nagasaki, ordered Commander 
Glynn in the United States brig " Preble " to 
rescue them. At this time the seas were so 
little known, the charts so imperfect, and the 
season so inclement, that naval men at Hong- 
Kong laughed at the idea of the little fourteen- 
gun brig ever arriving at her destination. At 
Napa, in the Loo-Choo Islands, the natives 
openly scorned the notion of Glynn being 
able to do anything, when, in the " Japanese 
victory over the Americans,'' — referring to 
the episode in Yedo Bay, — a ship of the line 

and a sloop of war had been " driven away." 

164 



Glynn, Perry, and Harris 

All this put Glynn on his mettle. Reach- 
ing Nagasaki, he dashed through the cordon of 
boats and dropped anchor within range of the 
city suburbs. The boom of the cannon an- 
nouncing his arrival was sweet music to the 
American sailors in prison. Boarded by the 
chief interpreter with attendants, who inquired 
his business, Glynn was ordered to leave the 
waters of Japan at once. The American's 
immediate reply was that his mission was to 
the governmuit. Then, rather ostentatiously, 
he gave the order to heave anchor, spread 
sail, and move forward. Visions of involun- 
tary hara-kiri at once excited the Japanese to 
voluble protests. Nevertheless, Glynn moved 
into the inner harbor and anchored within two 
hundred yards of the batteries on either side 
of the anchorage. He refused to see any- 
body but the governor, sending word that he 
would not leave until he had obtained the 
American seamen on deck. He demanded 
their immediate release. Furthermore, he 
made it plain that if the cordon of boats was 
not quickly broken up, he would blow them 
out of the water. . 

During the nine days the " Preble " re- 

165 



America in the East 

mained, a great army of soldiers gathered. 
Extra guns to the number of sixty were 
mounted, any one of which, rightly trained, 
might have sunk the " Preble.'* Yet, in spite 
of the glittering arms, the bright and varie- 
gated colors of the feudal banners, and the 
military and naval flags, the American com- 
mander, while granting a little longer time, 
refused to modify his request. Half his crew 
were on deck all the time, and every precau- 
tion against surprise and preparation for at- 
tack was made. Glynn was ably seconded by 
Lieutenant Silas Bent — afterwards with Perry, 
and the scientific discoverer of the Kuro 
Shiwo, or Pacific Gulf Stream. 

A new governor came into office. Visiting 
Glynn in the cabin, he asked for three days 
more time. Making an end to suavity of 
manner, Glynn dashed his fist upon the table 
and exclaimed, " Not another hour ! '* Nor 
should the governor nor any of the party 
leave the ship till he got an answer. Instantly 
the excited Japanese stood up, the interpreter 
telling Commander Glynn that this was a 
high officer, and must not be so spoken to. 
" So am I," retorted Glynn ; " I represent 

1 66 



Glynn^ Perry, and Harris 

the government of the United States." A 
parley was then asked for by the Japanese. 
With watch in hand, Glynn waited during the 
promised fifteen minutes. When the Japan- 
ese returned to the cabin, the governor re- 
marked to Glynn that he could have the men 
on the following day. 

Then " grim-visaged war smoothed his 
wrinkled front." With the frankest cordial- 
ity Glynn ordered refreshments, extended 
every courtesy, and shov^^ed the officers the 
drill, discipline, manual of arms, and general 
quarters. The next day the imprisoned 
Americans were brought on board, with every 
particle of property that belonged to them or 
their owners. Within fifty-nine days from 
leaving, Glynn had returned to Hong-Kong. 

Among the captives released was Ronald 
MacDonald, born in Astoria, Oregon, about 
1825. He had reached Japan in the v/haling- 
ship " Plymouth," and had been voluntarily 
put ashore for curiosity's sake, but was involun- 
tarily made a prisoner. This bright youth 
was the first teacher of the English language 
in Japan, — the forerunner of that modern 
education by American teachers which has so 

167 



America in the East 

transformed an Oriental people. He was a 
bearer of the Pilgrim's creed to a nation which 
now rejoices in a written constitution and is 
tending to democracy ; for, when asked by 
the Japanese officer to state the source of all 
power in the United States, and proceed 
from the highest to the lowest in authority, 
he answered, first of all, " the people," — a 
phrase inexplicable to the Japanese of that 
day. Among his pupils was Moriyama, who 
served as interpreter in the Perry negotia- 
tions. 

Commander Glynn put into the hand of 
Perry the key which that gallant officer used 
with such success in making the long-closed 
doors of feudal Japan open to commerce and 
civilization. By the blending of scrupulous 
politeness, consummate attention to the details 
of etiquette, and, last but not least, the dis- 
play of abundant and most efficient force. 
Perry was able to win a " brain victory," 
without firing a hostile shot or shedding a 
drop of blood. Yet Commander Glynn had 
paved the way for his success. 

When Perry's peaceful armada had sailed 
away, Japanese officialdom hoped it had got 

1 68 



Glynn, Perry, and Harris 

rid of the " hairy barbarians" for a long inter- 
val. What was the amazement of the Shi- 
rnoda officers on August 21, 1856, to behold 
the United States steamship " San Jacinto/' 
Commodore Armstrong, with Townsend 
Harris, consul-general, on board ! A resi- 
dence was asked for, and the common courte- 
sies proper in opening relations of official 
amity were demanded and obtained. Amid 
the strains of " Hail, Columbia," Harris 
landed. On September 4 our sailors formed 
a ring around the flag-stafF and cheered " the 
first consular flag" in the empire. At 5 p. m. 
the*" San Jacinto " left for China. 

Meanwhile, without a ship or a sailor, 
practically deserted by his government for 
eighteen months, except a brief visit from 
Captain Foote in the United States ship 
" Portsmouth," Townsend Harris won every 
point, and prepared the way for the diplomacy 
of twenty nations. Refusing to deliver Presi- 
dent Pierce's letter to any one but " the Em- 
peror," he entered Yedo, the long-forbidden 
city, on November 30, 1857, refusing on the 
way to undergo any of the humiliations com- 
mon to the Tycoon's vassals. His guard, at- 

169 



America in the East 

tendants, and baggage-horses were decorated 
with the American arms and colors. With 
only his Dutch secretary, Mr. Heusken, he 
secured audience of the Shogun, standing. 
Fie continued during many weary months the 
instruction of these political hermits in modern 
international etiquette, in view of a desired 
treaty of commerce and foreign residence. 
While the American ships were in China, the 
pot of Japanese politics was boiling over in 
murders and assassinations. The counter- 
play of forces was between Kioto, the seat of 
the Mikado's authority, and Yedo, the place 
of long usurpation and of the sham emperor. 
Signature to the treaty being delayed, Harris 
threatened to go to Kioto. 



170 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE GALLANT ACTIONS OF FOOTE AND 
TATTNALL IN CHINA 

THE names of Foote and Tattnall take 
us across the Yellow Sea. The former 
recalls the only passage at arms between the 
two forces of the governments of China and 
the United States. The latter revived a 
famous saying of Walter Scott, "blood is 
thicker than water/' making it mean forever, 
to speakers of the English tongue, that Briton 
and American are one in heart and aims, as in 
their best inheritances. 

While Governor John Bowring, Admiral 
Seymour, and Consul (afterwards Sir) Harry 
Parkes were having their quarrel with the 
Chinese commissioner Yeh, American steamers 
were twice fired on when passing the barrier 
forts near Canton. It seemed high time 
to teach the Chinese that all foreigners 
were not opium-smugglers, and that peaceful 
neutrals had some rights which ignorant man- 

171 



America in the East 

darins were bound to respect. Commodore 
Armstrong ordered Captain (afterwards Rear- 
Admiral) Foote, of the " Portsmouth," to 
bombard, capture, and destroy the forts. 

The steamer "San Jacinto " drew too much 
water to get near enough to use her guns, but 
the Httle American steamer " Williamette " 
towed the saiHng-ship " Portsmouth " to 
within five hundred yards of the largest and 
lowest fort, which was built of great blocks of 
granite and mounted heavy cannon. The 
" Levant," towed by an egg-shell steam-launch, 
the " Kum Fa," struck on a rock. So the 
" Portsmouth " on the first day had to fight 
alone. 

The Chinese began the war. For one mo- 
ment that day the long granite walls and 
darkened embrasures of the fort seemed in 
harmony with the sleepy repose of the beau- 
tiful soft afternoon, but before anchor was 
dropped, grape and round shot flew around 
and over the ship. Loud and clear were 
Footers orders as, without steam and without 
wind, in a narrow and unknown channel, and 
with only the precarious expedient of a spring 
cable, the "Portsmouth" got into position. 

172 



Foote and Tattnall in China 

To the few non-combatants on the ship, — 
purser, chaplain, surgeon, etc., — the time 
seemed long before the eight-inch ship's guns 
began to roar. Then her timbers quivered 
with the recoil of eight starboard broadside 
guns, and the cheers of our men made inspir- 
ing and consoling music. The shells from 
the " Portsmouth's " columbiads were hurled 
with awful effect, and the splendid marksman- 
ship quickly told inside the fort. Though 
the Chinese stood to their guns manfully, they 
had no explosive shells, but only grape and 
round shot. These lashed the water into 
white foam or flew over the ship. The 
"Portsmouth," caught in the current, was 
swung round with her stern tovs^ard the fort, 
which exposed her to a raking fire. A thirty- 
two-pound shot came into the cabin, carrying 
off the right arm and crushing the hip of a 
marine. Captain Foote at once ran out a gun 
from the stern port and continued the fight. 
When dusk fell, the fort was nearly silent. 

During several days, filled up in the inter- 
val with diplomacy, the Americans prepared 
for a land attack. On the 21st the " Levant," 
towed by the " Kum Fa," silenced one fort 

173 



America in the East 

on the left after an hour's cannonade. Then 
four hundred of our marines and sailors, in 
their boats, towed by the " Kum Fa," moved 
landward for a charge over muddy fields to 
take the forts. The launch of the " San 
Jacinto " was struck by a cannon ball and 
three men killed. Once on the semi-solid 
land, and in the face of a hot fire of grape, 
round shot, jingal, and rockets, our men 
rushed forward. The Chinese fired so rapidly 
that it is wonderful that our men were not all 
swept away ; but, as a rule, the jingal and 
rocket men fired too high. As soon as our 
men entered the forts, they broke and fled. 
Our total loss was seven killed and twenty- 
two wounded, all, in the final attack, belong- 
ing to the " San Jacinto." Under the ship's 
artillery fire, and during the fighting in the 
fort, at least three hundred Chinese lives were 
lost. A rocket, with a spear-pointed head and 
a feathered bamboo shaft six or eight feet long, 
bounced over the rice-fields and struck one of 
our marines, entering the leg along with its 
dirt and straw, and causing his death. 

One hundred and seventy-six guns were 
found in the fort, one of which was a monster 

174 



Foote and Tattnall in China 

brass piece of eight inches bore, weighing fully 
fifteen tons. It was over twenty-two feet long, 
and nearly three feet across at its greatest 
diameter. These four barrier forts were cap- 
tured between November 20 and 22. Al- 
though this gallant exploit was highly com- 
mended by the British officers, it attracted 
almost no attention in the United States. 
Nevertheless, it greatly cleared the situation, 
the Chinese learning to distinguish Americans 
and the American flag as they had not done 
before. At one of our navy-yards a monu- 
ment recalls the episode and names of our 
ga-llant slain. 

A few months later Commodore Tattnall 
appeared in Chinese waters. It was Tattnall 
who, in 1847, at Vera Cruz, wanted to pro- 
long his half-hour's cannonade of a fortress 
built of heavy masonry, with little steamers 
mounting one gun each. It was he who said, 
" War shortens life, but broadens it." Now, 
in i860, he was conveying Mr. Ward, the 
United States minister, on the chartered 
steamer " Toeywan," into the Pei-ho River. 
On the 23d of June the British and French 
allied gunboats, having blown up one boom, 

175 



America in the East 

attacked the forts, but being unable to force 
the second, were caught in a trap under short 
range of the Chinese guns, and were terribly 
defeated. Many ships were sunk or silenced. 
Eighty-five men were killed, and three hun- 
dred and forty-five were wounded. 

Tattnall, in the American steamer outside 
of the bar, was a spectator. He bore the 
sight until things were at their worst. The 
fiagship " Plover " had parted her cable, and 
drifted a helpless wreck until lashed to the 
" Cormorant." With the admiral wounded, 
and all her men killed or disabled, only the 
one bow gun was still gallantly served by a 
weary squad. Then the American commo- 
dore ordered his cutter, and in the thick of 
the fight passed through the fleet and the 
hell of fire to visit and cheer Admiral Hope. 
A round shot from the Chinese fort killed 
TattnalFs cockswain and shattered the stern 
of his boat. This raised the fighting blood 
of both tars and chief to the hottest. To the 
British officer's query of surprise at this act 
of a neutral, Tattnall explained that blood 
was thicker than water, and that he would 
gladly aid their wounded. Meanwhile the 

176 



Foote and Tattnall in China 

American sailors, moving up to the bow, 
leaped on board the " Plover," and actually- 
relieved their exhausted British sailor-mates, 
serving the gun during a round or two until 
Tattnall ordered them off, even while ap- 
proval twinkled in his eyes. His excuse for 
towing British marines into action, for assist- 
ing in an assault upon a Chinese fort, and for 
other technical violations of international law 
was, in a phrase, a sentiment, but one destined 
to strengthen and deepen as the years flow on. 
On the other hand, with equal humanity, 
Tattnall offered the services of his surgeons 
to aid the wounded Chinese ; but neither the 
Chinese government, nor race, nor nation — 
if there be such a thing as the last, which we 
doubt — has ever been particularly interested 
in saving lives endangered in war. TattnalFs 
offer was declined. The Pei-ho forts were 
captured. Our minister, J. E. Ward, reached 
Peking, refused to make the ko-tow, or 
nine prostrations, but ratified the treaty and 
returned. 



12 



177 



CHAPTER XXV 



MCDOUGAL IN THE " WYOMING " AT 
SHIMONOSEKI 



THE American men-of-war " Mississippi" 
and "Powhatan'' were released from 
China, and in the nick of time reached Japan, 
then politically Hke a volcano just ready to 
blow off its rock cap. Townsend Harris had, 
on February 17, 1858, secured the written 
promise of the Yedo government to sign the 
treaty, and on the 27th of July the American 
envoy was at Yokohama with Tattnall on the 
" Powhatan," delivering his letter, urging the 
Premier li's signature " without the loss of a 
single day." 

Yet, so far, the anti-Tycoon party at Kioto 
had withheld the Mikado's signature. The 
country seemed ready either for intestine war, 
or conquest by the " hairy alien." Should 
Japan become as India or China ? The 
regent-premier li answered no. He signed 
the Harris treaty July 29, and opened Japan 

178 



^^ Wyoming" at Shimonoseki 

first to the United States, and thus to twenty 
nations. For this act he was assassinated, 
March 23, i860, while the Japanese embassy 
sent by him was in America. In our days 
the critical scholarship of Shimada Saburo has 
set Ii*s long-clouded character into the sun- 
light of honor. The hermit days of the 
agitated Japan of 1853-68 are forgotten 
in the wealth, power, and splendor of the 
industrial and naval empire of to-day. 

Nevertheless, the olive-branch from Amer- 
ica meant civil war in Japan. " The steel 
parted from the wood." Swords flashed from 
the red scabbards and from the white. Sat- 
suma, of the scarlet sheath, typified the 
Mikado-reverencing and progressive South. 
Aidzu, of the virgin white wood covering the 
steel blade, stood for the loyal and conserva- 
tive North. Choshiu, in the West, however, 
held the Strait of Shimonoseki, the great high- 
way of foreign commerce. "In obedience 
to the [imperial] order," was inscribed on the 
flag which the clansmen flung to the wind 
from bluffs which they lined with batteries of 
heavy guns. They staked out the channel, 
so as to hit exactly the ships of the " barba- 

179 



America in the East 

rians," who had defiled the Land of the 
Gods. 

On June 25, 1863, that eventful day fixed 
for the " the expulsion of the barbarians from 
the God-country/' the American merchant- 
steamer " Pembroke/' with a pilot furnished by 
the Yedo government, and with the American 
flag apeak, was on her way northward through 
the strait. She was fired upon by the Choshiu 
clansmen in the batteries and on their armed 
brig, formerly the " Lanrick," but was unhurt. 
The peace of nearly 250 years in Japan was 
broken. On July 8 the French despatch- 
vessel " Kien Chang" was hit in seven places, 
her boat's crew nearly all killed by a shot, and 
the vessel saved from sinking only by lively 
use of the pumps. On July 1 1 the Dutch 
frigate " Medusa " was hit thirty-one times, 
seven shots piercing her hull, and three eight- 
inch shells bursting on board, four men being 
killed, and five wounded. On July 20 the 
French gunboat " Tancrede," though steam- 
ing swiftly through the channel, was struck 
three times with round shot. Not long after 
a steamer belonging to Satsuma, but mistaken 
for an alien vessel, was set on fire by shells 

180 



^^ Wyoming" at Shimonosfeki 

and sunk, twenty-six Japanese losing their 
lives, their bodies floating past Yoshibe 
Rock. The Choshiu artillerists were in high 
feather at their splendid successes. With their 
armed brig, their bark (formerly the " Daniel 
Webster''), and the big steamer " Lance- 
field" converted into a man-of-war, the 
Japanese believed that they could whip any- 
thing afloat which the foreigners might bring. 
The Confederate privateer " Shenandoah " had 
annihilated our whaling fleet in the North 
Pacific, and our commerce having been swept 
from the seas by the "Alabama," Americans liv- 
ing in Japan felt like people without a country. 
Captain David McDougal was then in 
search of the " Alabama." His ship, the 
sloop of war " Wyoming," mounted six guns, 
two of them being eleven-inch Dahlgrens. 
He heard the news of the " Pembroke," from 
Minister Robert Pruyn at Yokohama. He 
determined to cheer up his countrymen. 
Though without charts of the strait, or map 
of the batteries, McDougal ordered coal and 
stores on board with all despatch. He 
learned the exact draught of the Japanese 
steamer " Lancefield," and was delighted to 



i«i 



America in the East' 

find it greater than the " Wyoming's." . On 
July 165 under a cloudless sky, without a 
breath of v/ind, and the sea as smooth as a 
tank of oil, the " Wyoming," with her ports 
covered with tarpaulin, so as to look like a 
merchantman, arrived in the strait. The 
lieutenant in the forecastle called out that he 
sighted two square-rigged vessels and a 
steamer at anchor close in to the town. 
Most of the " Wyoming's " men and her 
Japanese pilot had never been under fire. 
When, therefore, McDougal called out, " All 
right ; we will steer right in between them 
and take the steamer," not a few aboard 
turned pale at the thought of their captain's 
thus " running amuck." Moreover, McDou- 
gal, noticing the stakes that marked the 
channel, and suspecting that the Choshiu 
guns were all trained on it, ordered the man 
at the wheel to run the ship inside, between 
the stake-line and the northern shore. The 
Japanese pilot seemed paralyzed with terror 
at the ship's running so close under the bat- 
teries. Yet McDougal took his risks, with 
cool knowledge of the situation and the 
depths of water, and without foolhardiness. 

„ 182 



_,t.crfrj^^'^^r 




From Harper's Mai^^zine. Copyright, ISUS, by Harper & Brothers. 

The Double-ender " Monocacy." 




Mk. 



From Harper's Magazine. Cojiyri^ht, li'JS, liy Harper & brothers. 

McDougal's Ship, the "Wyoming." 



^^ Wyoming" at Shimonoseki 

Even before the ship was thus steered, the 
eight-inch guns on the bluffs opened fire. 
The American flag was hoisted at 10.30 a.m., 
and the artillery of the '^Wyoming" began 
to play. McDougal's wisdom was quickly 
justified. Great red dragon-like tongues of 
flame and white clouds of smoke revealed 
fresh batteries on the hills and behind the 
town. Shot and shell screeched through the 
air, but they flew ten or Mteen feet over 
the heads of the " Wyoming's '' men, for the 
guns on shore had all been pointed upon the 
channel. There- were six finished batteries, 
mounting in all thirty guns. The three 
Japanese men-of-war carried eighteen pieces, 
making forty-eight cannon opposed to the 
" Wyoming's " six. The first Americans 
killed were two sailors near the anchor, and 
then a marine named Furlong, from Maine. 
Except Furlong, all the casualties were in 
the forward division. 

By 10.50 A. M. the Yankee ship, now in 
front of the town, dashed directly between 
the steamer and the two brigs. The Japan- 
ese gunners on the " Lanrick," who were so 
near that their faces could be seen, fired no 

183 



America in the East 

fewer than three broadsides from their bronze 
twenty-four pounders, while the muzzles of 
the " Wyoming*s " four thirty- two pounders 
nearly touched theirs. The " Lanceiield," 
having her heavier guns pointed up the chan- 
nel, was not able to make use of them, but 
fired swivels and muskets. The " Wyom- 
ing" rounded the bow of the steamer, and 
when out into the clear water again became 
the target of the batteries behind the town 
and of one brig, the other vessel showing 
signs of sinking. 

Unfortunately, the " Wyoming " grounded. 
Seeing this, the heavily manned Japanese 
steamer began to move, either to escape into 
the inner harbor, or to ram the "Wyoming" 
and board her while stuck in the mud. For- 
tunately, the Yankee's propeller worked the 
ship off. Then, neglecting the sinking brig, 
the " Wyoming " manoeuvred, in the terribly 
swift stream, until the pivot-guns had the 
range of their splendid target. Then both 
Dahlgrens spoke. Their shots so demoral- 
ized the company on board the " Lancefield " 
that the dignitaries from under the magnifi- 
cent purple canopy got off in sculling-boats 

184 



^^ Wyoming" at Shimonoseki 

and were rowed away, while the sailors leaped 
overboard by the score, dotting the water 
with topknots. Again McDougal ordered 
the gunners of the eleven-inch Dahlgrens to 
fire. At first they seemed to pay no attention, 
and the order was given three or fi3ur times. 
The gun-captain of the forward pivot was 
only waiting to get the exact range. The 
big shell struck the " Lancefield '* at the 
water-line, passed through the boiler, tore 
out her sides, and burst far away in the town 
beyond. The frightful explosion, casting out 
steam, smoke, ashes, iron, timber, and human 
beings, was succeeded by a gurgling swell, 
under which the steamer disappeared from 
sight. On her way back, the "Wyoming" 
dropped shells with marvellous accuracy into 
the batteries, one of which was wholly 
destroyed. 

At 12,20 P.M. firing ceased. Fifty-five shot 
and shell had been fired within a space of 
one hour and ten minutes. Counting time 
lost when aground, this meant more than a 
gun per minute. The "Wyoming" was 
hulled ten times, her funnel had six holes 
in it, two masts were injured, and the upper 

185 



America in the East 

rigging badly cut. The Choshiu clansmen 
fired chain-shot, grape, shell, and round shot 
from guns mounted on carriages of improved 
foreign pattern, able to sweep a wide arc and 
to change their elevation quickly. Their one 
hundred and thirty rounds killed five and 
wounded seven of our men. The loss of 
the Japanese, beside one battery ruined and 
two ships sunk, was probably over one 
hundred. 

After studying the original papers, and 
questioning numerous eye-witnesses, both 
Japanese and American, it is hard for the 
writer to qualify his matured judgment that 
in the annals of the American navy no achieve- 
ment of a single commander in a single ship 
surpasses that of David McDougal in the 
"Wyoming" at Shimonoseki. McDougal 
set the mark for Commodore Dewey. The 
Manila victory was on a larger scale. It 
cannot have been morally greater. 

Four days after McDougal's exploit, the 
French thirty-five-gun frigate and gunboat 
" Tancrede," with a land force of two hun- 
dred and fifty men, with maps made by the 
Dutch captain, shelled the forts, took one 

i86 



"Wyoming" at Shimonoseki 

five-gun battery of twenty-four pounders, and 
came away. Nevertheless, Choshiu became the 
centre of opposition to the Shogun's govern- 
ment at Yedo. The clansmen, re-enforced 
by ronins, or free lances, from all parts of 
the empire, repaired their losses, built new 
batteries, mounted heavier guns, and suc- 
ceeded for MtQtn months in closing the strait 
against foreign commerce. The Tycoon be- 
ing helpless, it became necessary for the treaty 
powers then represented in Japan to force the 
passage and destroy the forts. 



187 



CHAPTER XXVI 

OUR LITTLE WAR WITH ONE GUN 

N the allied fleet assembled to enforce the 
treaties and chastise the rebellious vas- 
sal, out of a total of 17 ships, mounting 208 
guns, with 7590 men, the British had nine 
men-of-war. The heaviest were equipped 
with splendid new breech-loading Armstrong 
rifled cannon, of which the English officers 
were exceedingly proud, not sparing their 
ridicule of our antiquated muzzle-loaders. 
The French had three fine vessels, mounting 
49 guns, with 1235 men. The Dutch squad- 
ron consisted of four heavy ships, carrying 58 
guns, served by 951 men. 

What was the American force ? Our civil 
war was in progress, and the only national 
ship on the station was the sailing sloop of 
war "Jamestown," Captain Cicero Price, 
worthless in a dangerous strait with a narrow 
channel and the tide running like a mill-race. 
Yet the moral influence of the United States 

188 



War With One Gun 

was desirable, as showing united action of the 
powers. So, like a tiny bantam amid big 
fighting-cocks, the little steamer " Ta Kiang " 
of 600 tons was chartered. A- thirty-pounder 
Parrott gun from the " Jamestown " was 
mounted on her deck. Lieutenant Frederick 
Pearson, with a party of thirty marines and 
sailors, was sent to co-operate with the fleet 
in towing or carrying the wounded. The 
ordinary complement of this merchant ship's 
officers and sailors was to work the steamer, 
while Pearson and his men were to give it a 
martial air. Nothing was said about fighting. 
Since the government at Washington could 
not be communicated with, and approval of 
the action of Pruyn and Price was not cer- 
tain, Pearson was given orders which he 
might interpret to suit a Quaker ■ — or other- 
wise. In reality, despite Washington's warn- 
ing against "entangling alliances," here was a 
case in which the United States was allied 
with three European powers for war-purposes 
against an Oriental people. It forms a strik- 
ing precedent. Was it the first ? 

The greatest of naval battles in Japanese 
waters was fought September 5 and 6, 1864. 

189 



America in the East 

The SIX heavy ships took up a position on 
the left, fronting the town and the ten bat- 
teries, which mounted sixty-two cannon. 
The fiVQ hght vessels made a flanking squad- 
ron on the right, while in the centre were the 
largest ships, — " Euryalus,*' " Conqueror," 
and " Semiramis," — all finely equipped with 
heavy rifled guns, and among them was the 
little "Ta Kiang." In the battle which fol- 
lowed, lasting during the afternoon and next 
morning, the " Ta Kiang " took part, doing 
splendid execution at three thousand yards 
with her rifled Parrott. In a trial of speed, 
Pearson's men actually beat the gun-squad of 
the " Euryalus " with her breech-loading 
lOO-pounder Armstrong gun. It must be 
remembered, however, that the method of 
breech-loading was in those days so clumsy 
that this feature was later abandoned in the 
British navy. It was resumed when the 
notable improvement of hinging the breech, 
and putting in a gas-escape check, and an 
outward latch on, made breech-loading the 
only method worth considering. 

The " Ta Kiang " assisted handsomely in 
towing the boats of the landing force which 

190 



War With One Gun 

captured and dismantled all the forts, but 
beat all the vessels and quickly landed the 
fifty-six wounded on board in the hospital at 
Yokohama. Pearson was warmly praised by 
the British, French, and Dutch admirals, and 
awarded by Queen Victoria the decoration 
of the Order of the Bath, which Congress 
allowed him to wear. Yet neither McDougal 
nor Pearson ever received promotion, notice, 
or thanks for his superb and shining example 
of duty nobly done. In May, 1898, a 
prominent Japanese editor wrote : " The ex- 
pedition against Choshiu did more to open 
Japan's eyes than anything else." 



191 




CHAPTER XXVII 

A BRUSH WITH FORMOSA SAVAGES 

UR civil war being over, Farragut's 
flag-ship, the " Hartford," Commo- 
dore H. H. Bell, joined the China squadron. 
The American bark " Rover " had been 
wrecked on the southeast corner of Formosa, 
and her crew murdered by the copper-colored 
natives, whose favorite sport was head-hunt- 
ing. As usual, the Chinese mandarins could 
do nothing. So on June 13, 1867, guided 
to the right place by British residents of 
Takao, a force of 1 8 1 marines and sailors was 
landed from the " Hartford " and " Wyom- 
ing, " who were to go into the bamboo jungles 
to chastise these Indian-like skulking cannibals. 
After four hours' marching in the frightful 
moist heat of darkest Formosa, unable to 
see but a few feet in the tangled thickets, 
" a fight in a furnace " took place, in which 
Lieutenant-Commander Alexander Slidell 

Mackenzie, one of the finest officers in the 

192 



Formosa Savages 

navy, was slain. The loss of the enemy, who 
were scarcely visible in the undergrowth, and 
were only indicated by the frequent flash of 
a gun-barrel in the sunlight or the puiF 
of smoke from their hiding-place, was not 
known. Beyond burning a few huts, little 
damage was done. The body of Mackenzie 
found a hospitable grave in the garden of the 
British consulate at Takao, which again showed 
that " blood is thicker than water." A young 
officer named Sigsbee, afterward captain of 
the battle-ship " Maine," made a sketch of 
the funeral and burial-spot. 

American interests in Formosa were after- 
ward handsomely served by General Le 
Gendre, United States consul at Amoy. A 
few months later, January ii, 1868, Admiral 
Bell, with Lieutenant Read and ten sailors, 
was drowned in the upsetting of a boat off the 
ever-dangerous Osaka bar, Japan. No Amer- 
ican officer of so high rank had thus far died on 
this station. The graves of the seamen in 
Kobe Cemetery, like those at Shimoda, Yoko- 
hama, and other points in the Far East, are 
faithfully and lovingly decorated by our men 
annually on May 30. Memorial day is always 
13 _ 193 



America in the East 

impressively observed by our men abroad. 
Usually, in the case of recent burials, our 
American tars lay flowers on the graves or 
hang a wreath on the monuments of their 
British sailor-mates also. " Blood is thicker 
than water." 

Americans could not but rejoice when, 
in 1895, the Japanese took over Formosa 
from the Chinese, and began to govern it 
decently. 



194 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE KOREAN EXPEDITION 

JAPAN had forged ahead in enlightened 
progress, but Korea persisted in her 
mood of morose seclusion. Besides American 
vessels shipwrecked on her inhospitable coasts, 
the crew of the schooner " General Sherman,'' 
which, early in August, 1866, entered 
the Ping- Yang River, met violent deaths. 
Whether " merchant or invader," aggrieved or 
aggressors, those on board lost their lives. 
The Koreans, first with fire-rafts and then with 
weapons, had attacked and slain them all. 
The facts in the case were investigated and 
found about twenty years afterward by Ensign 
John B. Bernadou, the first naval officer 
wounded in our present war with Spain. 

To inquire into the " General Sherman " 
affair, and to make a treaty, an American force, 
consisting of the " Colorado," " Alaska," 
" Benicia," " Palos," " Ashuelot," and " Mono- 
cacy," under " fighting John Rodgers," moved 

195 



America in the East 

into the Han River, on which Han- Yang, the 
Seoul, or capital of Korea, is situated. With 
Mr, F. F, Low, our minister in Peking, with 
whom was the responsibility of peace or war, 
our men caught sight of the superb scenery of 
Korea at Boisee Island, May 30. Only the 
" Palos " and the old double-ender " Mono- 
cacy," now the " Noah's Ark'' of the Asiatic 
squadron, could enter the river. On June 2, 
leaving the heavy vessels behind, four steam- 
launches and the two gun-boats moved 
out to the work of surveying. Around 
the bend of the river was "a whirlpool 
as bad as Hell Gate," and a channel only 
three hundred feet wide. To the surprise of 
the Americans, there was a fort and a new 
earth-work mounting several thirty-two 
pounders, and hundreds of jingals lashed by 
fives to logs. The treacherous Korean com- 
mander was one second too late. A storm of 
fire burst and clouds of smoke rose over the 
fort, while the water was torn into foam and 
our men soused in the splash. One Ameri- 
can was wounded, but of the two or three 
hundred Korean missiles of many sizes, not one 
injured a ship or boat. The bow guns of the 

196 



^}mi^f!^^^9^^^f^9mM^ 




3 '^^ 

From Harper's Magazine. — Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. 



Captain Homer Blake. 



The Korean Expedition 

launches, the cannon of the moving " Palos," 
and the ten-inch shells of the " Monocacy " at 
anchor quickly cleared the fort of its defenders, 
the white-coated Koreans flying like sheep 
before the well-dropped shells. 

Those who know the inside of the hermit 
nation's history do not wonder at the silli- 
ness, obstinacy, and ill-concealed contempt of 
the Tai Wen Kun's cat's-paws, called officers, 
who from the first rudely rejected all offers of 
intercourse. This prince-father, with heart 
of stone and bowels of iron, an intense hater of 
foreigners and Christianity, was then the 
virtual ruler of Korea. Admiral Rodgers 
allowed ten days for some apology for the 
treacherous attack, but none coming, an 
expedition of chastisement was prepared. 
The two gunboats, four launches, and twenty 
boats carried ten companies of infantry with 
seven pieces of artillery, the 105 marines and 
546 sailors being organized as a landing force. 
With the sailors of the " Monocacy" and 
" Palos," this expedition, under Captain Homer 
C. Blake, numbered 759 men in all. Among 
the active officers were Winfield Scott Schley, 
Silas Casey, C. M. Chester, L. A. Kimberly, 

197 



America in the East 

Douglas Cassel, Seaton Schroeder, Albion W. 
WadhamSj and others now famous. 

The "Monocacy," strengthened with two 
nine-inch guns from the " Colorado/' led the 
way up the river June lo, and quickly breached 
the wall of stone, ten feet high, and emptied 
with her shells the first of the ^ve forts built 
on three promontories. Our men landed eight 
hundred yards below the fort, and went into 
camp. After destroying everything warlike in 
the stone fort and the water-battery, they 
bivouacked under the stars, the marines guard- 
ingthe outpost. In the dark the white-clothed 
Koreans moved about like ghosts, firing on 
our pickets. The next day, dragging their 
howitzers over the hills, our men moved 
towards the next line of fortifications called the 
" middle/' fort. After the " Monocacy " had 
shelled it into silence, and the marines found 
it deserted, the sailors destroyed everything 
in it. 

Up hill and down dale in this country, 
rough to soldiers dragging cannon, but a 
dream of beauty to tourist and poet, our 
men moved to the main stronghold, which 
seemed perched like an eagle's eyry upon a 

198 



The Korean Expedition 

high rocky blufF. How could such a citadel 
be stormed by men without wings to fly ? 
This fort, mounting 153 guns, large and small, 
was fully garrisoned by stalwart tiger-hunters 
from the north. To the left thousands of 
armed natives were gathering in dark masses 
on the flanks of the Americans, and in a rush 
on the howitzer companies of the rear-guard 
and outposts they might overwhelm their foes. 
Some of our men were already prostrated by 
the heat. Something must be done quickly. 
From a ravine, up the steep incline of a cone 
150 feet high, our men must climb in face 
of jingal and musket fire. Fortunately, the 
shrapnel of the howitzers kept the clouds of 
warriors on the flanks at a distance, while the 
*' Monocacy's " shells had breached the walls. 
At the right moment Casey gave the order, 
and up the ladderlike cliffs our men rushed 
amid a rain of jingal balls. When the tiger- 
hunters could no longer load their clumsy 
pieces, stones, dirt, arrows, and spears were 
their weapons. Fighting with desperation 
in the hand-to-hand struggle, the Koreans 
chanted a death -dirge in melancholy cadence. 
The majority were slain inside the walls, and 

T99 



America in the East 

the few fugitives were quickly annihilated by 
the rifles of McLean's sailors and the canister 
of Cassel's howitzer battery. About ^^o 
Koreans were slain. Only twenty prisoners, 
all wounded, were taken alive. The other 
two forts, open to the rear from the main 
work, were easily entered. 

On our side. Lieutenant McKee and two 
other men were killed, and ten wounded. 
Five forts, 50 flags, 481 jingals and cannon 
(27 being heavy guns), and hundreds of 
matchlocks were captured as the result of the 
two days' operation. Courage, zeal, and dis- 
cipline marked our heroes throughout. Ex- 
cept possibly in the disembarkation on a 
mud flat, it is diflicult, from a naval point 
of view, to see how the operations could 
have been more wisely planned or more scien- 
tifically carried out. Some of the Korean 
cotton-armor suits, flags, lances, and rude 
breech-loading cannon, of a model like 
those used by Columbus, were brought to 
Washington. 

Seen in the perspective of Korean history, 
It seems now utterly improbable that any 

treaty could have been made at the time 

200 



The Korean Expedition 

when the Tai Wen Kun ruled the country. 
Even so sound an authority as the late S. 
Wells Williams declared to the writer that 
Rodgers's chastisement of the Koreans helped 
to make them willing to treat with their fellow- 
creatures in 1882. After a winter of negotia- 
tion in Peking, Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, 
in the United States steamship " Swatara/* 
off Chemulpo, May 19, signed the document 
which ordained peace and friendship between 
one of the smallest and one of the greatest 
of nations, and his guns saluted the new flag 
of Korea. To-day, in Seoul, the young stars 
and stripes and the age-old mystic symbols 
and diagrams wave in harmony. Electric 
lights, an American-built railway, the first 
in the kingdom, improved machinery and 
methods, to say naught of schools, teachers, 
hospitals, and physicians, show the change 
from isolation and barbarism. 

It has been only in the nineties that Ameri- 
can steel ships with modern armament have 
been seen in Asiatic waters. On the 3d of 
January of this year. Commodore Dewey 
hoisted his pennant on the United States 
steamship " Olympia," and his subsequent 

201 



America in the East 

exploits are known. Let not the lustre of 
his fame be dimmed, or the credit of his 
daring acts be discounted. Yet in Asiatic 
waters there were brave Americans before 
him. All honor to them ! 



202 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE HISTORIC MOVEMENT TOWARDS 
THE PACIFIC 

T was an apocalyptic vision to Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa as he stood on the 
Darien peak and gazed upon a sea unknown 
before. Thus to the European conscious- 
ness the mightiest of oceans was revealed. 
America had been the great obstacle to those 
who, by means of a straight westward pas- 
sage over the waters, would reach China and 
the Spice Islands. Through the long course 
of explorations in America the one aim of 
Europeans was to find a waterway to China. 
But centuries were required for the unveiling 
of the American continent even in outline ; 
nor is its northern end known yet. Only 
now is the full significance of the Pacific 
Ocean and its importance beginning to dawn 
upon the civilized world. Compared to this 
vast area of blue water, the Atlantic Ocean is 
but a lake. 

203 



America in the East 

Looking at this greatest of oceans from the 
other or Asian side, there was no knowledge 
or consciousness of its vastness. From the 
unlettered men of the Australasian continent 
and archipelagoes, to the highly civilized 
Chinese and Japanese, the " great sea " was 
simply a vast unknown, into which disap- 
peared every year fishermen and sailors. 
Legend and fairy tale told of Utopias and 
wonderful lands beyond, or on the sea-floor 
located the abodes of the undying, with 
dragon kings and queens decked in coral and 
pearl ; but the " great sea " never mirrored 
the sail of home-coming ships after they had 
been swept into the swift Black Tide. 
Nevertheless, from between Luzon and 
Lombok this great current, which, through 
all the unmarked centuries, and perhaps every 
year, bore northward on its bosom unwilling 
emigrants, conscripts of fate, made a pathway 
to America. In this sea, food was always 
plentiful. Landmarks by day, illuminating 
volcanoes by night, and even habitable shores 
were never far away. Thus Nature, or Pro- 
vidence, had made a natural highway, furnish- 
ing also food, motor-power, lighthouses, and 

204 ' 



e 

guideposts. It was along the Philippine, 
Japanese, Kurile, Aleutian, and Alaskan 
archipelagoes that America was, in one way 
at least, populated. 

Now the time has come when nature's 
highways of wind and current are made 
obsolete by steam. The intercourse is 
mutual, and in direct lines. Including bays 
and islands, the United States, even without 
Alaska, has a total coast-line of 21,354 miles, 
of which 3,251 miles front the Pacific rim. 
The coast-line of Alaska is greater than that 
of our Atlantic seaboard of 12,359 i^i^^s. We 
are within forty-five miles of Russia. Our 
westernmost island of Attu brings our frontier 
within seven hundred miles of Japan. Our 
steamers now cross from San Francisco to 
Yokohama in twelve or fifteen and to China 
in eighteen days. The central archipelago 
of Hawaii, and some smaller islands or foot- 
holds in the Micronesian Archipelago, are 
ours. We have possession of the Philippines 
— the gateway to China, which is the richest 
single market in the world. Let us inquire 
concerning the possibilities of this domain. 
William H. Seward, one of the wisest of 

205 



America in the East 

statesmen, the first and most far-seeing be- 
liever in the expansion of the United States 
beyond the Pacific, wrote over a generation 
ago: 

" The Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, 
and the vast regions beyond, will become the 
chief theatre of events in the world's great 
hereafter." We are to-day seeing the fulfil- 
ment of his vision, which has become reality. 

The central sea of human interests was 
once the Mediterranean or Mid-Earth Sea. 
Again, the Atlantic became such. Now the 
largest of oceans between the greatest of 
land-masses on the globe, well fitted for man's 
noblest achievements, is to win its honors 
long waited for. Already more than one-half 
of the race dwells by its shores. If the popu- 
lation of the globe be 1,500,000,000, and, 
ignoring the Atlantic coasts, we assign to the 
western American slope 40,000,000 ; to 
Australasia, Dutch East Indies, Philippines, 
and the islands of Oceania, 52,000,000 ; to the 
British Indies and dependencies, 290,000,000 ; 
to the Malay Peninsula and Siam, 9,000,000 ; 
to French India and Indo-China, 22,000,000; 
to Korea and eastern Siberia, 2 1 ,000,000 ; to 

206 



Movement towards the Pacific 

Japan and Formosa, 45,000,000; to the 
Chinese Empire and islands, 400,000,000, — 
we shall have a total of 878,000,000 souls, or 
considerably more than one-half of the world's 
population, in the Pacific area. 

Providence, or the Power that guides 
human development, invites us to look abroad. 
The world-house is being rebuilt. It is no 
longer Japanese-like, set behind moats, with 
the garden in the rear. It is now to be on 
the American model, with plenty of piazza 
and front windows. Our eleven States which 
we reckon within the Pacific territory have as 
yet but six per cent of the population and ten 
per cent of the wealth of the Union. Cali- 
fornia, Oregon, and Washington possess about 
sixty per cent of the wealth of the whole 
group, yet these eleven States have as yet but 
about six per cent of the whole foreign trade 
of our country. Nevertheless, theirs is the 
grander promise and potency. Looking at 
the extraordinary growth of this region, re- 
membering that only " a cycle of Cathay " ago 
there were not as many hundreds as there are 
now millions of white residents in these States, 
and that, instead of the English-speaking 

207 



America in the East 

republics in Australia and New Zealand, these 
lands under the Southern Cross were little 
more than lines on a map and empty of white 
men, we must acknowledge the transfer of 
world-interest. 

The white man is rushing both ways, from 
east and west. The centre of the world's 
hopes and ambitions has shifted to the Pacific. 
The Russian is marching seaward, building 
his railways as he goes, settling the great 
plains and valleys of southern Siberia, and 
commanding northern China. Where thirty 
years ago forests stood and tigers were shot, 
stands Vladivostok, a city of fifty thousand 
people. Southwardly, in warmer and richer 
regions, the Briton owns a splendid highway 
to India, lined with islands, fortresses, and 
coaling stations, which he holds for the good 
of a fifth of the race. He is exploring the 
African valley from Cairo to the Cape for a 
railway, which will be free to the world. In 
the tropics, he holds superb ports, islands, and 
coast tracts. In the south temperate zone, 
he has built up great commonwealths between 
Capricorn and the Antarctic. On the bosom 
of the Southern Pacific, the Union Jack is the 

208 




< 

H 
< 

u 

< 

o 

X 
H 

o 



Movement towards the Pacific 

predominating flag. He is our friend, and is 
stretching out hands to greet and welcome us, 
and to ask that we co-work with him for the 
good of the world. Japan, a new naval and 
industrial empire, under predominantly Anglo- 
Saxon influences, has started up. Obtuse- 
nerved China is awakening to the realization 
that the face of the world has changed. The 
Malay race now waits for its uplift and fruition, 
under the tutelage of nations holding that 
open Bible which knows no special favorites 
of Heaven, but only new men in the image of 
the holiest man. 

On our American side, British energy and 
capital have built a railv/ay across Canada, and 
started splendid lines of steamers to win the 
carrying trade of the tea and silk countries. 
Across the United States the centre of popu- 
lation moves westward every year. It is 
already near the Mississippi River. New 
highways of stone or iron are being built, and 
new lines of ships launched, while already 
Hawaii is ours. In the nature of things, our 
chief industrial outlet must be toward the 
West and over the Pacific. In Europe, our 
manufactures can win but limited success, 
14 209 



America in the East 

owing to hereditary skill and keen competi- 
tion ; but in those great markets in countries 
bordering the Pacific where half the popula- 
tion of the globe is, European and American 
meet on neutral but not on equal ground, for 
we have the advantage, possibly, of finer in- 
ventive power, and certainly of nearness, 
which means cheaper freights. As our coun- 
try becomes more densely populated, as " the 
West" becomes settled, conservative, and 
" slow," a larger export in commerce will be 
an absolute necessity. This we shall find in 
what was the Far East, but is now our near 
West. 



2IO 



CHAPTER XXX 

TRADE AND MARKETS IN ASIA 

SIGNS are already manifest that our ocean- 
carrying trade is moving swiftly from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. In one decade, 
from 1884 to 1894, the shipping on the 
Atlantic coast decreased by about 130,000 
tons, while that on the Pacific coast increased 
by about 125,000 tons. Everything points 
to a large increase, within a few years, of our 
share in that commerce on both sides the 
Pacific basin, which has already reached a 
total of twenty million tons annually. In five 
or ten years, or at least within a generation, 
there will be railways in China, the Nicaraguan 
Canal, a fairly complete American railway 
system from Alaska to Chili, and the trans- 
Asiatic railway completed. Then the present 
^5,000,000,000 of Pacific Ocean commerce will 
doubtless be doubled in amount. 

The writer of this article remembers when, 
the foreign trade with Japan amounting to 

211 



America in the East 

less than $ 10,000 a year, men sniiFed and 
sneered at the idea of the Mikado's Empire 
ever being worth the attention of first-class 
European and American trading houses. Now 
Japan is a factor of nearly first-class influence 
in the new world-problem. Her industrial 
movement is no sudden spasm. It is based 
on the healthy growth of democracy, which 
moves to the realization of the noble political 
ideals. If only her constitutional, political, 
and her industrial expansion proceed at an 
equal rate, and is kept pure by a steadily 
improving morality, then Japan will be a 
great controlling power in the Pacific, and 
pretty sure, with fair treatment by us, to work 
in harmony with " the Anglo-Saxons," by 
which we mean speakers of the English 
language. Thirty-five years ago, Japan had 
not so much as one tall chimney in the way 
of associated industrialism, or an iron rail, 
or a steamer. To-day, she has hundreds of 
cotton-mills, with nearly a million spindles, 
employing 25,000 operatives. Instead of 
sending out a few curios, she now exports silk, 
tea, tobacco, woven goods, matches, various 
manufactures, and coal. Her foreign com- 

212 



Trades and Markets in Asia 

merce amounted in 1897 to nearly ^200,0005- 
000. The national revenue has doubled in 
twenty years, and the general wealth tripled 
since foreign commerce began. 

On the other side is China, which has 
regions capable of producing everything, and 
a population that can be educated into appre- 
ciation of almost all that Occidental skill and 
experience can supply. China's conversion 
and regeneration will come from without, but 
the child is already born who will live to see 
the Empire threaded with railroads. Yet, 
some day, she will change from being a passive 
instrument of the ambition of Russia and 
France, and will become an active agent. The 
industrial revolution has already begun, and 
both her exports and imports are changing. 
She has coal, iron, petroleum, natural gas, 
sugar-cane, tobacco, indigo, cotton, and all sorts 
of food supplies. The reign of Confucius 
will not last forever. The next " cycle of 
Cathay " will mean more to the world than 
ever Mr. Tennyson dreamed. 

India has also changed. Her traditional 
products of opium, indigo, and spices are now 
in the shadow compared with her raw and 

213 



America in the East 

manufactured cotton, jute and jute goods, oil, 
seeds, wheat, rice, wool, timber, and coal. 
Korea's foreign trade, which a decade ago was 
nearly nil, amounted in 1897 to 111,755,625. 

It is more than probable that Britain, 
assisted very probably by the United States, 
will maintain "the open door" in China. 
This means that, despite all that Russia or 
France may do in conditioning Chinese trade 
and development north and south, the richest 
part of China, the valley of the Yang-tse, 
with an area of six hundred thousand square 
miles, inhabited by the most naturally indus- 
trious and commercial people in the East, 
will be our open market. The Great River 
flows into the Pacific, and already Shanghai 
at its mouth, " the coming New York of the 
Far East," has an annual foreign trade of 
nearly ^80,000,000. 

To-day, of the lands bordering on the 
Pacific, Anglo-Saxon nations hold Alaska, 
British America, and the United States, while 
the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are 
now the ruling flags in the central Pacific. 
British peoples rule New Zealand, Australia, 
Hong-Kong, parts of New Guinea and 

214 



Trades and Markets in Asia 

Borneo. France holds land in Annam 
between Siam and the China Sea. Germany- 
has part of Samoa and the port of Kiao-Chau 
in China. The Dutch possess Sumatra, Java, 
Celebes, Lombok, and other islands forming 
Insulinde or Island India, whose inhabitants 
number nearly 34,000,000 people. Alarmists 
have started the story that the Netherlands 
Government contemplates building a steel- 
clad fleet in order to protect its oceanic pos- 
sessions against probably American aggression. 
As a matter of fact, however, the proposal to 
do so was made before the Hispano-American 
war broke out, and was rejected in the last 
session of the States-General. The Nether- 
lands have no fear of the United States, but 
of Germany only. 



215 



CHAPTER XXXI 

OUR FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA 

ONE striking fact, which includes a long 
series of events that belong to our his- 
tory in the Pacific Ocean, is our friendship 
with Russia. Being so deeply rooted in the 
past, this must condition our future develop- 
ment there. It must also remain a permanent 
element in any consideration of a possible 
alliance with English-speaking nations. Sur- 
prising to many Europeans is this mutual 
sentiment between an absolute despotism and 
a democratic republic. Yet this friendship 
has roots that go back in time as far as 
William Penn and Czar Peter. In 1671 the 
founder of Pennsylvania — the man who an- 
ticipated in his writings both the Czar's ireni- 
con and that federation of nations which may 
yet come — held an interview. Penn talked 
in his mother's Dutch tongue with the Rus- 
sian autocrat who, to civilize his people, be- 
came a mechanic and ship-carpenter. Again, 

216 



Our Friendship with Russia 

in the days when George the Third, urged 
on by the corrupt Parliamentary ring which 
forced the American Revolution, applied for 
twenty thousand Russian soldiers to fight our 
fathers. Queen Catherine refused to lend a 
single mercenary. On the contrary, she pro- 
posed and consummated the Armed Neutral- 
ity. Both actions touched the hearts of our 
fathers. It was by the orders of his imperial 
master the Czar, that DashkofF, the Russian 
minister at Washington, in 1813, offered his 
services to our government to bring about 
peace between Great Britain and the United 
States. President Madison accepted, and 
thence issued the Treaty of Ghent, — the 
inside history of which is yet to be written. 

From the very first appearance of the 
American whalers and merchant ships in the 
Pacific Ocean, the friendship of the Russians 
was manifest. The first treaty with the 
United States and Russia, in 1824, was ex- 
ceedingly liberal, declaring the navigation and 
fisheries of the Pacific free to people of both 
nations. In 1830, when Commodore Mat- 
thew Perry was sent, in the new ship " Con- 
cord," to bear John Randolph of Roanoke as 

217 



America in the East 

our first Minister to Russia, the Czar wished 
to engage American naval officers, even as he 
afterwards employed American engineers to 
build his railways. Friendly relations steadily 
deepened between the two countries, until, as 
we all remember, a Russian fleet was sent into 
our waters to assist us in our Civil War, in 
case of hostile interference by Great Britain. 
In both countries emancipation took place, 
the serfs being liberated in 1861, and the 
slaves being set free in 1863. Both emanci- 
pators, the absolute Czar and the republican 
President, fell under the hands of the assassin, 
and thus both nations were united in sym- 
pathy and sorrow. 

The cession of Alaska in 1867, with a coast 
line larger than our older one on the Atlantic, 
made Russia on her Asiatic side our nearest 
western neighbor and pacific, we trust, in a 
two-fold sense, forever. Since the triumph 
of the Union, after the Civil War, American 
manufacturing and commercial interests have 
steadily increased in importance and value 
in " all the Russias." No American admin- 
istration will lightly disturb our friendly rela- 
tions with this mighty Power. 

218 



CHAPTER XXXII 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE IN THE PACIFIC 

THERE were Americans in the islands 
of the Pacific and countries adjoining, 
even while our fathers were colonists under 
the British crown. As soon as a treaty of 
peace with Great Britain was signed, even be- 
fore we had any land west of the Mississippi, 
and hardly beyond the Alleghenies, an Ameri- 
can ship " Empress," of which Major Shaw of 
the United States First Artillery was super- 
cargo, sailed on Washington's birthday from 
New York, in 1784, to bear the flag and 
extend the trade of the young republic. In the 
previous year, 1783, Captain Kennedy, in the 
ship "Columbia," built in Plymouth County, 
Massachusetts, sailed up the Oregon River 
and named it. Thus the record of American 
enterprise on both sides of the Pacific, and of 
honorable achievement in the Far East, begins 
almost in the very year of our recognition as 
a nation by Great Britain. 

219 



America in the East 

Besides the barter of Canton fire-crackers 
and American ginseng (first discovered by a 
Jesuit priest in Vermont), the Chinese de- 
manded our furs. A profitable commerce 
opened, which led the captains and crews of 
hundreds of American ships to become ac- 
quainted with the whole coast line of America 
fronting the Pacific. In addition to furs from 
America, they took sandal wood from Hawaii. 
After trading with the Asian continent and 
refitting in the archipelago, our merchant nav- 
igators returned to the United States with tea, 
silk, and porcelain. The Chinese name for 
Hawaii is still the " Sandal Wood Islands." 
This traffic enriched Kamehama so that he 
was able to unify the whole archipelago. At 
the same time, Hawaiians engaged on Ameri- 
can ships attracted the notice of Christians 
at home. Indeed, the presence of two of 
them at New Haven in June, 1810, helped 
to kindle the impulses that led to the for- 
mation of the American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, — one of the 
noblest growths of the mind and heart of 
our people. 

As usual, missionaries were pioneers, and 

220 



American Enterprise 

in 1 8 19 established themselves in Hawaii. 
A commercial agent arrived in 1820, though 
no treaty was made by the United States, 
until in 1823 one was negotiated by Captain 
T. Ap Catesby Jones. Not only did our 
trade with China enrich us in many ways, but 
it promoted powerfully the development of 
ship-building, until, in the American clippers, 
built to supply us with tea, the acme of grace, 
beauty, and speed in sailing ships was reached. 
Can any one say that the American acquisition 
of the Philippines, so near to markets con- 
taining half the world, will not similarly stim- 
ulate trade and enterprise ? 

American diplomatists in the Pacific lands 
were led by Edmund Roberts, of Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire. In the United States Steam- 
ship " Peacock," sent out by President Jack- 
son, he made treaties with Muscat and Siam. 
He visited Cochin-China, and was preparing 
to open friendly intercourse with China and 
Japan, when he was taken ill and died. A 
long line of successors from the Country of the 
Flowery Flag followed Roberts. Joseph Bal- 
estier, our consul at Singapore, opened trade 
with Borneo by the treaty of June 23, 1850 ; 



221 



America in the East 

but American missionary teachers had been at 
work on the island as early as 1836. Siam, 
China, Japan, and finally Korea were brought 
into relations with the United States. Of 
the names of Caleb Cushing, Anson Bur- 
lingame, S. Wells Williams, and our later 
envoys, Seward and Denby, associated with 
China, of Matthew Perry and Townsend 
Harris, with Japan, of R. H. Shufeldt and 
H. N. Allen, with Korea, we may well be 
proud. In all of these countries, Americans 
have been foremost in introducing the best 
elements of civilization. In the Caroline 
Islands, they have lifted up a race from can- 
nibalism to decency, writing, hope, and enter- 
prise. Schools, colleges, hospitals, literature, 
and Christian religion have made the same 
indelible mark, as to the real meaning and 
purpose of Americans, which " the Great 
Pacific Power," as President Arthur called 
our country, has stamped on Turkey, India, 
Polynesia, and the Far East. 

In making known to the world this might- 
iest of oceans, with its great island-world, its 
currents, highways, and continental shores, 
whether luminous in history, shadowy in 

222 



American Enterprise 

tradition, or utterly unknown, the Americans 
have not been behind the great nations of 
the earth. It is just exactly "a cycle of 
Cathay," or sixty years, since that American 
exploring expedition which, under Commodore 
Wilkes, sailed on its voyage of ninety thou- 
sand miles, revealed the Antarctic continent, 
hitherto unknown, and through the researches 
of Charles Pickering, Horatio Hale, and James 
D. Dana, so enriched science. Thousands of 
our whaling ships became familiar with the 
coast line of both Americas, as well as with 
the lands inside the tropics and close to the 
Arctic and Antarctic Circles. The early records 
of New England ports, such as Salem and 
Newburyport, reveal how daring were our 
merchant navigators in carrying the flag and 
opening trade in the countries of the Americas 
and the Chinas, so that the hermits of old 
Nippon began to count the " black ships " 
by scores and hundreds in a single year. 
Captain Silas Bent, with Glynn in Japan in 
1849, ^^^ ^^^^ Perry in 1853, made known 
the existence in the Pacific of the Black Tide, 
a great gulf-stream similar to that in the 
Atlantic, with potencies for the creation of 

223 



America in the East 

climates, the peopling of continents, and the 
regulation of an ever-increasing commerce. 

Space does not allow us to more than hint 
at the story of America in the Pacific, which 
grandly deserves a volume. Suffice it to say 
that for over a century we have had an army 
of pioneers who scarcely dreamed of the mag- 
nitude of the movement they were leading. 

Our commercial captains who first carried 
the American flag round the world, our 
missionaries and first diplomatists, were but 
pioneers of the world-movement now cen- 
tring in the Pacific, in which also our naval 
history is so glorious. This is concerned not 
only with battles and bombardments, with 
chastisements of piracy, treachery, and cruelty 
to the shipwrecked, with war and the shedding 
of blood, but also with noble works of science 
and humanity. On land, by the energy and 
pluck of Marcus Whitman, the missionary, 
the Northwest slope, Washington and Oregon, 
became ours, and, later, Fremont and Kearny 
won for us California. Then Commodore 
Stockton hoisted our flag and formed a pro- 
visional government. In the South Pacific, 
our whaling fleets and industry. Porter's 

224 



American Enterprise 

achievements in the " Essex " with the British 
ships " Phoebe " and " Cherub " and temporary 
occupation of the Marquesas Islands ; the naval 
exploits in Chinese waters of Foote, Tattnall, 
and others ; the fights with pirates and their 
extinction ; the treaties made by the sailor- 
diplomatists Perry and Shufeldt with Japan 
and Korea, with two brilliant episodes at 
Shimonoseki, and the expedition under John 
Rodgers in Korea ; the exploring expedition 
of Wilkes, and his discoveries on the Antarctic 
Continent; the exploring expedition of John 
Rodgers through Behring Strait ; the cruises 
of the "Shenandoah" and^Ticonderoga;" the 
deep-sea sounding of the " Tuscarora ; " the 
exhibition of man's greatness in the hour of 
death at Samoa, — make brilliant chapters in 
the history of the United States navy in 
Asiatic waters, crowned by Dewey's achieve- 
ments at Manila. 

Now, in the ordering of that Power not 
ourselves, the main army of the American 
people have come up with the advance guard. 
In the new evolution of history in the Pacific, 
shall we lead or be led ? 

IS 225 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

PRECEDENTS AND RESOURCES 

WHEN we see what brain-victories the 
Dutch and English have won, con- 
quering and holding millions of people less 
by force of arms than by might of mind, we 
wonder whether Americans also have not the 
character and intellect requisite to rule ten 
millions of the Malay race. Apart from the 
employment of native troops for police and 
military work, it has been argued, and reason- 
ably so, that a knowledge of Sanscrit by 
British scholars in India has been worth to 
Great Britain an army of a hundred thousand 
men. It is certain that the intellectual con- 
quest of the Malay language, the dialects of 
Insulinde, and of the social customs of the 
natives have stood in little Holland in 
potency as a half-dozen army corps. It will 
be utterly vain for Americans to suppose 
that by navy guns and infantry rifles and 
territorial governors, the Philippines can be 

226 



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w 
u 

w 
o 
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w 

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Precedents and Resources 

conquered, pacified, and administered. The 
greatest victories must be those of brain and 
virtue. But it is our faith that we are well 
able to attempt the task. 

Look at our vast reserves of unused force 
in educated men, graduates of Annapolis and 
West Point, — for only a fraction of the gradu- 
ates educated at public expense serve full pub- 
lic careers. Look at our armies of young men 
and women possessing a college education and 
special professional training. Look even in 
our army, among the volunteers. What 
trades, business, handicrafts, expert ability are 
not represented in the ranks ? Even were 
our men now in Luzon disbanded and set to 
peaceful work, the requisites of industrial con- 
quest would be at hand. Despite the bad 
politics of Pennsylvania and New York, to 
say nothing of such varieties of governors as 
Illinois and South Carolina have allowed to 
grow, we still think it possible that the Amer- 
ican people can produce the administrators 
and their helpers who can rule with honesty 
and ability the new American Insulinde. 

For, on the other side, the problem of the 
permanent government of the Philippines is 

227 



America in the East 

far from hopeless. Here are millions of men 
waiting, for what? For justice and oppor- 
tunity to improve their condition of life. 
They know what the Spaniard's rule was, and 
what was the power of priests who were often 
more Spanish than human, more Roman 
than Cathohc. So long as the dreamed-of 
self-government by natives means only the 
grip of the strongest hand, there will be little 
incentive to industry or improvement of life 
among them ; but, once given authority 
which secures the greatest good to the greatest 
number, education which means opportunity 
for all, religion which makes new and better 
men and a happier state of society, then there 
will be quick response. To those things 
which can be best understood at once, there 
will be speediest welcome. Open, with trust 
tempered by prudence, the schools, courts, 
a local army and a navy, according to ability, 
and life will be worth living as never before. 
Despite our Jeremiahs, these are some of the 
blessings which American rule will certainly 
bring. 

Wise statesmanship will recognize founda- 
tions on which to build. The Spanish 

228 



Precedents and Resources 

teachers and missionaries have brought proba- 
bly five million of the people within the pale 
of the Roman Catholics. Yet it would be 
the dream of the mere theorizer to suppose 
that only Catholic missionaries would go out 
from the United States, for wherever the 
American flag floats, there is a fair field and 
no favor. There will be no trampling on that 
flag, even by an archbishop. There will no 
intolerance and insults to those outside of 
another faith. All public support to any- 
thing sectarian will be at once withdrawn ; 
but there will be the widest liberty for the 
Catholics to extend their doctrines and to 
enlarge their fold. 

American Protestants can break new ground 
in those parts of the archipelago yet uncul- 
tivated by missionaries; though we believe 
they will find, for a generation or two to 
come, their best field in educational work, 
rather than in direct preaching and popular 
evangelization. All over the earth, the 
Roman form of the faith improves mightily 
under the criticism and in the presence and 
stimulus of reformed Christianity, — based as 
it is on an open Bible and teaching democracy 

229 



America in the East 

in religion. So likewise Protestants, so-called, 
are all the better for the challenge of their 
claims and the provocation to good works 
from Christians of the Roman cult. So also 
it will be in these islands, especially if the 
work of Christianizing and building up the 
characters of men is attended to, more than 
the desire to work harm to rivals. 

American missionaries in the Caroline 
Islands have given the world an object- 
lesson of American civilization, even without 
government protection. Here we see the true 
spirit of the American, who looks at the 
world and humanity not with the eyes of a 
bargain-maker, politician, or economist, but in 
the light of those ideals of duty taught by the 
Master. Here is a case of where men have 
come, and women too, and have given the 
people writing, books, literature, education, the 
arts of life, hope for the future, and a rule of 
conduct that has wrought wonders within two 
generations, until by Spanish aggression the 
hopeful enterprise was nearly ruined. May 
these islands soon be ours by just acquisition 
and righteous control. 



230 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

OUR IMPERATIVE NEED 

FOR the government of the Philippine 
people, we need our best men in all the 
varied lines of human ability. 

There must be made, by a better civil 
service than we have now, a real career open, 
and not a mere temporary position for those 
fitted to lead and rule. There must be fair 
salaries, secure tenure of office, a pension on 
retirement, and a reasonable amount of dis- 
tinction and consideration. Strange as it may 
seem, we cannot see why these will not come. 
Demand and supply react upon each other. 
Our lamp of experience may be small, and it 
is, alas, still true, as Coleridge has taught, that 
the lessons of history cannot be learned when 
" passion and party blind our eyes," for then 
" the light which experience gives is a lantern 
on the stern, which shines only on the waves 

behind us." 

231 



America in the East 

Yet there is some patriotism left above 
passion and party; and because we believe 
this, we set our little lighted wick in the re- 
flectors of British and Dutch history, so that 
the track ahead of us is illumined. Even in 
going around the curves, we can have guidance. 
When we see how these two peoples have had 
much the same corruption in politics, the 
same and probably worse party-clamor and 
passion, and yet have risen above it, — the 
sober sense and second thought of the nation 
prevailing, — why cannot we at least hope and 
take courage from the past — our own and 
theirs ? A few years ago our navy yards were 
the nests of political jobbery. It is not so 
now. Bad as our politics may be, they are 
surely not, in the mass, worse than those of 
our fathers, when election day was so often 
the synonym with riot and bloodshed. 

Responsibility sobers and develops. " New 
occasions teach new duties." Long experi- 
ence has demonstrated that the surest way to 
save a dying society is to interest its members 
in some larger work. Awaken thought in the 
great world-problem of missions, and there 
follows enlargement of ideas, liberahty of 

232 



Our Imperative Need 

pocket, and substantial effort. The way to 
make a man or a nation is to give educative 
responsibilities — not too much or too many 
at a time. Because it is the politician's trick 
— " of an ancient and fish-like smell," easily 
perceived — to divert attention from home- 
needs by foreign war, must the American of 
1899 ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ other extreme of barbed- 
wire enclosures and Chinese foot-binding? 

We are very far from being satisfied with 
our civil service, nor do we yet think that our 
governmental administration, either in gross or 
detail, is what it ought to be. We need a 
foreign policy which is not Democratic, Repub- 
lican, or in any way partisan, but national. 
Though progress in this direction and reform 
of the civil service is slower than we can wish, 
it is not so very different from what we note 
in history, especially British history. 

On the printed page, we can read in a few 
minutes of great movements and reforms, and 
we may and do, in spite of ourselves, get the 
idea that in the old days the bettering of 
things was not so tedious an operation, or 
had so many set-backs and discouragements 
as in our time. But in reality the road from 

233 



America in the East 

disease to health is never a straight one. Re- 
form does not ride on the Empire State 
Express. Even should it come, as hysteria 
or a hurricane, it is more destructive than 
wholesome. While human nature remains so 
exasperatingly conservative, sure progress will 
be slow. Yet we take hope. Our navy is 
worth all the money we have spent upon it, 
if it has demonstrated no other lesson than 
that which it has made patent, viz. : that right 
training of elect men in rigid courses of disci- 
pline, with noble traditions and the sanctions 
and environment of honor, yields the most 
satisfactory results to the nation. Does not 
our regular army prove the same thing? Is 
not our improved civil service, slow though 
its reform be, a proof of our general claim ? 
Does not even the advance thus far made 
encourage us to believe that we have the 
material and the moral reserves for grappling 
to the new tasks which have been laid upon 
us? 

Yet West Point and Annapolis do not 
graduate all the able men of the country. 
Our missionaries do not monopolize all the 
zeal and working power in good citizenship 

234 



Our Imperative Need 

abroad, though they do set an inspiring 
example. Journalistic Jeremiahs would lead 
one to suppose that honesty and political 
capability scarcely existed within our borders. 
Now, apart from the other sons and daughters 
of the republic, we have, as promising material, 
an army of young people, children of army 
and navy officers, professors, teachers, doctors, 
who, with intellectual heritage and that splen- 
did self-control and reserve of force so richly 
nourished in the home of professional men, 
think high and have to live plainly and 
with wise economy. As in the English civil 
service, so we venture to believe it will be 
found in ours, that, for the lifting up of bar- 
barous races, the building of new states with 
Anglo-American ideals in the Pacific, and for 
the filling of the difficult posts of statesmanship 
and political routine, no class of men will fur- 
nish a larger contingent than the sons of 
American ministers. 

If we read the past aright, the American 
people will not follow ; they will lead. No 
theoretical objections or academic warnings 
will repress their instincts of national develop- 
ment. The same motives which have for a 

235 



America in the East 

hundred years impelled them will drive them 
now into new enterprises, of gain indeed, 
but also of desire for mutual benefit between 
man and man, of education, of moral uplift, 
of spiritual blessing. Nor in these will they 
fail or be discouraged until they have set 
righteousness in the earth. 



236 



INDEX 



237 



Index 



AbEEL, Dr. David, 73, 77. 
Adams, John Quincy, 159. 
Aidzu, 179. 
Alaska, 28, 205, 218. 
Allen, Dr. Henry N., 123, 222. 
Allen, Dr. Young J., 83. 
American Board C. F. M., 220. 
American Commerce, 53, 71. 
American Firms in China, 71, ici. 
American Flags, 157, 175. 
American Foreign Policy, 87. 
American Inventions, 104. 
American Literature, 117. 
American Missionaries, 49, 76, no. 
American Missionaries in Hawaii, 

I3S» 151- 
American Political Classics, 117. 

American Text Books, Ii6. 

Angell, J., 87. 

Anglo-Saxons, 53-57, 212. 

Antarctic Continent, 223. 

Antisell, Dr., 115. 

Apootsae, 155. 

Armstrong, Samuel, 27, 169, 172. 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 112. 

Arthur, President, 222. 

Australia, 208. 

Avery, 87. 

Bacon, Alice M., m, 112, 

120, 155. 

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 203. 
Balestier, Joseph, 221. 



Battles, 174. 

Beggars of the Sea, 9. 

Bell, Commodore, 192. 

Bent, Silas, 130, 166, 223. 

Bernadou, John B., 195. 

Berry, J. C, 106, 109. 

BIddle, Commodore, 164. 

Bingham, John A., 119. 

Black Tide, 204. 

Blake, Homer C, 197. 

Blake, Wm. P., 115. 

Bonin Islands, loi. 

Bowditch's Navigator, 116. 

Bridgman, Dr. E. C, 79. 

British, 25, 48, 191, 232. 

British and American Co-operation, 

54- 
Brooks, Wm. P., 115. 
Brown, James Ross, 87. 
Brown, Rev. S. R., 73, 109, 120. 
Bryan, Samuel M., 108. 
Buckley, Dr., in. 
Buddhism, 68, 94. 
Burlingame, Anson, 86, 222. 

California, 207. 

Caoutchouc, 38. 
Capron, Horace, 115. 
Caroline Islands, 222, 230. 
Casey, Silas, 197, 199. 
Cassel, Douglas, 198. 
Cathay, a cycle of, 58, 90, 92, 
207, 213, 223. 



239 



Index 



Catherine, Queen, 217. 
Catholic Missionaries, 84. 
Chamberlain, B. H., 1 1 a. 
Chaplin, W. S., 115. 
Chauvinism, 112. 
Chester, C. M., 197. 
China, 54, 58, 61, 62, 65, 21 
Chinamen, 141. 
Chinese, 16, 32, 138. 
Chinese Decay, 65. 
Chinese Empire, 61. 
Chinese in Hawaii, 128, 144. 
Chinese Newspapers, 82. 
Chinese People, 64. 
Chinese Reformers, 122. 
Chinese Repository, 79. 
Chino-Japanese War, 14, 89, 

146. 
Choshiu, 179, 181, 186, 191. 
Christian Missions, 81, 83. 
Christianity in Japan, 105. 
Chronology of Japan, 93. 
Civilization, 30, 38. 
Civil Service, 231. 
Clark, E. W., 115. 
Clark, W. S., 115. 
Cochin-China, 221. 
Coffee, 41. 

Coffin, Reuben, loi, 161. 
Coleridge, 231. 
Confederate Privateers, 181. 
Confucius, 67. 
Constitution of Japan, 118. 
Cook, Captain, 126, 133. 
Cotton, 42. 
Crawford, J. U., 115. 
Crosby, ill. 
Culbertson, M. S., 77. 
Gushing, Caleb, 85, 222. 
Cutter, J. C, 106, III, 115. 



109, 



Dana, James D., 223. 

Darien, 203. 

Dashkoff, 217. 

Declaration of Independence, 127. 

Decoration Day, 55, 193. 

Denby, Minister, 88, 222. 

Dennis, James S., 149. 

Devereaux, James, 158. 

Dewey, 3, 17, i6i, 186, 225. 

Diplomatists, 224. 

Dutch, II, 25, 33, 44, 47, 96, 

127, 157, 180, 188, 191, 215, 

232. 

East India Company, 72. 

Eastlake, E. W., 102. 

Eastlake, F. Warrington, 120. 

Eldredge, Stuart, 115. 

English, 47. 

English in Japan, 103. 

English-Speaking Peoples, 44, 50, 

53- _ 
Expansion, 21. 

Famous ships, 183. 

Farragut, David, 159. 
Fenollosa, E., 114. 
Feudalism in Hawaii, 133. 
Feudalism in Japan, 133. 
Finck, H. T., 120. 
Foot-binding, 66. 

Foote, A. H., 169, 171-173,225. 
Formosa, 60, 192, 193. 
Foster, J. W., 88. 
France, 214, 215. 
Fremont, 224. 
French, 180, 188, 191. 
Fukuzawa, no. 
Furlong, firom Maine, 183. 
240 



Index 



GeISINGER, Captain, 164. 

Germany, 215. 

Ginseng, 54, 71, 154, 220. 

Glynn, J., 103, 164, 223. 

Goodyear, 37. 

Gordon, M. S., 120. 

Grant, General, 88. 

Great Britain, 214. 

Great Wall of China, 66. 

Greey, Edward, 120. 

Hale, Horatio, 223. 

Happer, A. P., 74. 

Hardy, A., no. 

Harris, F., 120. 

Harris, Townsend, 13, 104, 169- 

170, 176, 222. 
Harwell, 106. 
Hawaii, 125, 205, 220. 
Hawaiian Origins, 128. 
Hawthorne, 118. 
Hearn, L., 120. 
Heco, 102. 

Hepburn, J. C, in, 120. 
Hermit Nations, 22. 
Heusken, Mr., 170. 
Hideyoshi, 9, 95. 
Hildreth, R., 120. 
Holcombe, C, 88. 
Holland, 226. 

Hong-Kong, 54, 164, 167. 
Honolulu, 134. 
House, E. H., 102, 120. 

Imperialism, 3. 

India, 26. 
Insulinde, 26. 

Islands of United States, 19. 
lyeyasu, 95. 
16 



Jackson, President, 221. 

Janes, L. L., in. 

Japan, 29, 61, 75, 145, 209, 211, 

Japanese, 16,54. 

Japanese History, 94. 

Japanese in Hawaii, 128, 145. 

Japanese Origins, 94. 

Japanese Reformers, 122. 

Japonism, 93. 

Jefferson, President, 158. 

Jewett, F. F., 115. 

Jones, D. W. Ap, 115. 

Jones, T. Ap Catesby, 221. 

Jute, 41, 43. 

Kamakura, 95. 

Kamehameha, 134, 220. 
Kanaka, 135, 136. 
Kang, 83. 
Kearny, 224. 

Kennedy, Captain, 155, 161. 
Kidd, Benjamin, 22, 45. 
Kimberly, L. A., 197. 
King, C. W. & Co., loi. 
Kitasato, Dr., 52. 
Knapp, A., 97, 120. 
Knox, G. W., 120. 
Korea, 60, 69, 122. 
Korean Newspapers, 123. 
Korean Reformers, 122. 
Ko-tow, 86. 
Kuro Shiwo, 130, 166. 

LaFARGE, J., 114, 120. 
LeGendre, C. W., 193- 
Legge, Dr., 48. 
Leland, Dr., 115. 
Li Hung Chang, 89. 
Long, J. L., 120. 
241 



Index 



Loti, P., 112. 
Low, F. F., 196. 
Lowell, P., 120. 
Luzon, 131, 227. 
Lyman, B. S., Ii5« 

Macaulay, 26. 

McCartee, D. B., 106. 
MacDonald, R., 45, 103, 167. 
McDougal, D., 103, 181, 186, 

191. 
McKee, Lieutenant, 200. 
Mackenzie, A. S., 192. 
Maclay, A. C, 120. 
McLean, 200. 
Magnetic Needle, 69. 
Malay Language, 226. 
Malay Race, 129. 
Manchius, 16. 
Manila, 186. 
Manjiro, 102. 
Marquesas Islands, 225. 
Martin, W. A. P., 74, 88. 
Mason, L. W., iii. 
Mediterranean, 206. 
Meiji, 92. 

Mendenhall, T. C, 115. 
Mikado, 92-95. 
Missionaries, 224. 
Monroe, James, 159. 
Montague, J., 127. 
Monuments, 55, 103, 134, 175, 

194. 
Moriyama, 168. 
Morrison, R., 71. 
Morse, E. S., 115, 120. 
Munroe, H. S., 115. 
Murray, D., 107. 
Muscat, 221. 
Mutsuhito, 92. 



Nagasaki, 96, loi, 103, 
106, 158, 164, 165. 

Napa, 164. 
Nanking, 83. 
Nantucket, 10 1, 1 58. 
Navy, 234. 
Neesima, 1 10. 
Newburyport, 223. 
New China, 90. 
Newspapers, 102. 
New Zealand, 208. 
Nobunaga, 95. 

Oregon, 207, 224. 
Pacific Gulf Stream, 130, 166. 

Pacific Ocean, Islands in, 19. 

Pacific Ocean, 130. 

Parker, P., 75- 

Parkes, H., 171. 

Parley, Peter, 116. 

Paul, H. M., 115. 

Peabody, Cecil H., 115. 

Pearson, F., 103, iii, 189, 191. 

Peking, 88. 

Penhallow, D. P., 115. 

Penn, William, 162, 216. 

Perry, Matthew C, 49, 92, 114, 

i54j 157, 168, 222, 223. 
Peter, Czar, 216. 
Philippians, 5—7. 

Philippines, 10, 47, 60, 1 31, 221. 
Pickering, C, 223. 
Pierce, President, ill. 
Pinto, Mendez, 133. 
Piracy, 54. 
Poi, 139, 140. 
Polk, President, 162. 
Populations, 206. 
Porter, D., 159, 160, 224. 
242 



Index 



Portuguese, 128, 143. 
Portuguese in Hawaii, 128. 
Premier li, 178. 
Price, Capt. C, 188. 
Printing, 69. 
Printing Press, 72, 135. 
Protestant Missionaries, 84. 
Pruyn, R. H., iii. 
Pumpelly, R., 114. 

Queen victoria, 196. 

Quinine, 39. 

Randolph, John, 217. 

Reed, WilUam B., 86. 
Richards, Miss, 109, iii. 
Riordan, R., 120. 
Rip Van Winkle, 62. 
Rittenhouse, 127. 
Roberts, Edmund, 160, 221. 
Rodgers, John, 195, 201, 225. 
Russia, 205, 214, 216. 
Russians, i6, 208. 

SaBURO, Shimada, 179. 
Salem, 223. 
Samurai, 97. 
Sandwich, Earl of, 127. 
San Francisco, 33. 
Sanscrit, 226. 
Sapporo, 115. 
Satsuma, 180. 
Schley, W. S., 197. 
Schroeder, S., 198. 
Scidmore, E. R., 120. 
Scott, M. M., III. 
Scott, Walter, 171. 
Scudders, 48. 
Seoul, 123. 

Seward, Wm. H., 205, 222. 
Shaw, Maj. S., 154. 



Shiba, Bell of, i. 

Shimonoseki, 179, 186, 225. 

Shimonoseki Indemnity, 119. 

Shogun, 95. 

Shufeldt, R. H., 2, 122, 154, 201, 

222, 225. 
Siam, 221. 
Sigsbee, 193. 

Simmons, D. B., 106, 120. 
Slavery, 55. 
Smith, E. P., 108. 
Spaniards in Hawaii, 126, 134. 
Spices, 32, 33, 35. 
Statistics, 211. 
Stewart, Captain, loi. 
Stockton, Commodore. 
Sturgis, J. R., 155. 

TaI wen KUN, 197, 201. 
Talbot, Olyphant & Co., 73. 
Talcot, Miss, iii. 
Talmage, J. V. N., 80. 
Taoism, 68. 
Taro, 138. 

Tattnall, T., 171, 175, 225. 
Taylor, io6. 
Tea, 41, 68, 154, 
Tennyson, Alfred, 58. 
Terry, Professor, iii. 
The Pei-ho Forts, 177. 
Tokio, 2, 93, 118. 
Tokugawa, 96, 98. 
Trade, 211. 
Translations, 75, 108. 
Treat, Ulysses, 115. 
Treaties, 178. 
Treaty of Ghent, 217. 
Tropical Products, 32, 43, 46. 
Tropics, 34, 46, 53, 56. 

243 



Ind 



ex 



Utopias, 204. 

VeRBECK, G. F., 75, 106, 120. 
Vladivostok, 208. 

WaDDELL, J. A. L., 115. 

Wadhams, A. W., 198. 

Wainwright, 102. 

Ward, General, 27, 88-89, ^75> 

177. 
Washington, 207, 224. 
Washington, George, 8, 22. 
West Indies, 51. 
Whalers, loi, loa, 158. 
Wheeler, Dr. L. N., 80. 
Wheeler, William, 115. 
Whitman, C, O., 115. 



Whitman, Marcus, 224. 
Whitney, N. W., 115. 
Wigmore, J. H., 120. 
Wilkes, Commodore, 223, 
Williams, G. B., 108. 
Williams, S. Wells, 73, 78, 79, 

86, 88, 90, 102, 222. 
Wing, Yung, 73. 
Women in China, 112. 
Women in Japan, 112. 
Wyckoff, M. N., 115. 

YaTOI-TOJIN, 1 1 6. 

Yedo, 95. 
Yeh, 171, 
Yokohama, 104. 
Young, John Russell, 87. 
Young China, 90. 



244 



JUl S 1899 



